Chapter LVII On Paralysis of a Toe
Sometimes a hawk loses all power in one of its toes and is quite unable to grasp its food with it. Treatment: apply a leech. If this fail, brand the toe lengthways with a needle, taking care that the tendon748 is not burnt. If these two remedies fail, waste no time in further treatment, and “labour not at beating cold iron.” Many a hawk have I seen with this disease, but seldom a cure. The long-winged hawks are more liable to it than the short-winged. Perhaps the injury arises from a strain, by the hawk grasping her food too tight and straining or tearing a tendon. Now a severed tendon will not join. Should such an accident happen to your hawk, God grant that it fall on one of her small toes, for that is not so serious; but if it happen to one of her “hunting talons”749 she is ruined; she can do no good at all.
O hawk, if of your hand a tendon break
For evermore you must the hunt forsake.
Footnotes
748 Rag-i pāy-i ū, “tendon.”
749 Mik͟hlab-i shikārī.