Part 2 — CHAPTER XL REMEDIES FOR SLOW MOULTING
D. C. (Douglas Craven) Phillott translation
Moulting hawks are of two kinds; the one “generous,” the other “miserly.” The “generous” are those that moult quickly; the “miserly” those that positively refuse to part with their feathers. Should you happen to have a hawk of the latter description and wish to make it moult quickly, then:—
Receipt: procure a snake; hold its head and tail together in one hand, and then chop off, with one blow, about four fingers’ breadth of its extremities; skin it, and give your hawk a little of its flesh.[644] Item: feed your hawk a few days on the flesh of the hoopoe.[645] Item: give your hawk daily, concealed in a thin slice of meat, one ant-lion with three of the saliva-glands of sheep.[646] Item: dry and grind up some hornets,[647] and for three alternate days sprinkle this powder on your hawk’s meat. Item: reduce your hawk’s food for three or four days, so that she may lose a little flesh. Grind[648] up the skin of a snake, and twice a day give some of this to her with her meat. She will quickly cast her feathers.[649] Item: dry, in the shade, several saliva-glands taken from the necks of sheep. Grind one before feeding and mix it with her meat. She will soon cast her feathers. Item: during the space of six days, feed her thrice on the flesh of a nine- or ten-day-old puppy. She will quickly cast and renew her feathers. This receipt is specially beneficial in the case of long-winged hawks, particularly so in the case of the peregrine, which moults better than any other kind of hawk, for it moults quite two months earlier than other hawks.[650]