Chapter XLV: Diseases of the Nose

Should your hawk be unable to “tire” with force, and should she draw her breath with difficulty and her crop become filled with air, it is a sign that the air passages of her nostrils are blocked. _Treatment_: for one or two days, give her, as “tiring” and food, the tough thigh of a fowl; for the exertion of pulling at this will induce a flow of water from her nostrils. Should this fail, pound some sneeze-wort[671] very fine, and put it in a fine reed; place one end of the reed on the hawk’s nostril, and blow into the reed so that the powder enters the nostril. After a few sneezes, there should be a flow of water from the nostrils, and the ailment should disappear. _Item_: mix the juice of coriander seed with the juice of a turnip-radish, and drop this into her nostrils, and she will be cured. _Item_: with a stick of log-wood, brand her skull from the base of the yellow cere of her beak, upwards, for a length of three barley-corns: if the brand be longer than three barley-corns, it will reach the brain-pan and be injurious. This is a last resort; for, as the Arab proverb has it, “The last of remedies is the cautery.”