Chapter XIV The Vultures
Vulture.—[The author now briefly describes a species of bare-necked vulture that he calls Dāl, apparently the only species of true vulture known to him. The description contains nothing of interest. He continues:]—
Scavenger or Egyptian Vulture.—Before the first moult the plumage of the Scavenger Vulture is dark, with a few small light-coloured spots on the back and breast. The head is nude and yellow. After the first moult, a certain number of white feathers make their appearance. After the second, the bird becomes quite white, with the exception of the ends of the flight-feathers, which remain black.
The gut144 of this vulture, which is at the end of the sternum,145 applied as a poultice, fresh and warm, for three consecutive days, is a certain cure for scabbed eyes that water, and from which the lashes have dropped off, or for fistulous sores that will yield to no ointment. The poultices should not be removed for twelve hours: it will then be noticed that numerous minute worms have been drawn by them from the wound. At the third application, if it please God, a cure will be effected. The author can testify to the efficacy of this remedy.
Use as a “train.”—If it is intended to train a chark͟h to take eagles, it should first be given the necessary “trains” by hand, and then entered to wild quarry by being flown a few times at young scavenger vultures in the dark immature plumage. As they are slow on the wing and show no fight,146 the young chark͟h can take them with ease.
Though purely carrion feeders, the Vultures (as also the Raven described in the next chapter) are generally included amongst the Rapacious Birds: these huge birds, with beaks powerful enough to tear open the skin of a dead camel or ass, are unable to catch and kill even a helpless partridge.
Footnotes
140 Haggard Sakers will generally fly at harriers, refusing to give up the chase and so getting lost. A haggard peregrine I had killed a harrier.
141 Chīlāq-i qāpāq-i kūtāh.
142 Dāl; elsewhere dāl-i murdār-k͟hur.
143 Kachal charkas; the Egyptian Vulture: kachal means “scald-headed;” charkas is corrupted form of karkas, a common term for a vulture. The Egyptian vulture feeds largely on human ordure, a habit that can be traced in the popular name given to it by soldiers in India.
144 K͟hazīna, k͟hazāna, “the gut.” This word does not mean the “crop.”
145 ʿAz̤m-i zawraqī, lit. “boat-bone.”