Note 714 — Chapter LI · ON CANKER OF THE FEATHERS[704]

The author seems to have confused “false moult” with “feather-canker,” but the two diseases are separate. In “false moult” the hawk casts newly grown feathers, and, as it were, recommences a second moult before she is out of the first, and so on. This disease is well known to Indian falconers, but no case has come under my direct notice. In “feather-canker,” or in one form of it, the hawk moults well and clean, but when flying to the lure one of its flight-feathers will make a whirring sound as though not set in the wing at the proper angle. In a few days this feather will break off at, or in, the flesh, and there will probably be a trace of blood. One by one every flight-feather will break off in this manner. In the only case I have seen, the hawk, a saker, had moulted perfectly and was apparently in the best of health. The disease attacked both wings and she lost every one of her flight-feathers.