The booke of falconrie or havvking for the onely delight and pleasure of all noblemen and gentlemen : collected out of the best authors, aswell Italians as Frenchmen, and some English practises withall concerning falconrie / heretofore published by George Turbervile, Gentleman.

Of the diseases and cures of Hawkes. The opinion of M. Francesco Sforzino Ʋicentino, an Italian Gen∣tleman Falconer.

IT doth belong to a good and skilfull Falconer, not alone to knowe all kindes of hawkes, and to haue the cunning how to reclaime, kéepe, fléepe, ympe, & mewe the sayd hawkes, with sundry other like matters incident and appertayning to Fal∣conrie: but it is very necessary and behoueful for him to haue knowledge and good experience in their diseases and cures: for that they are birdes subiect to sundrie maladies and acci∣dentes, the cure of all which doth rest in the carefull kéeper. Wherefore hauing (vnlesse I flatter my selfe) in the former parts of this collection, performed my promise, made in the very entry and begining of this booke, as touching Hawks, and other matters belonging to the misterie and skill of Fal∣conrie: it is onely left now, and I rest charged with their dis∣eases and cures, to dicipher vnto you the meane to know the maladies, as also a methode to recouer them: wherein if hap∣pily

any man desire a more ample discourse of the natures, & o∣riginall causes of those diseases, thā herein I shall bewray, let him know & bethink himself, that I am neither profound Phi∣losopher, nor learned Phisition by profession, but that in these I deale as a Falconer, manifesting and making shew of cures proper & peculiar to euery disease, wherw^t I could euer yet find a hawk charged, & such as may light vpon any kind of hawke, by misfortune & casualty. And as touching remedies for their mischiefs, I mean to speak of very few which I haue not sun∣dry times approued w^t very good successe, wherfore I say, that hawkes may be diseased and vnperfect, either in body or fea∣thers, which I intend and mean, when they are vnable by any euil accident to perform their parts and duties in any conditi∣on, as not to be able to flée, or strain the prey w^t their pounces, or any such like action, which by natur they ought to perform.

In body they are diseased, eyther by some outward cause, as by a stripe or bruise: or els by some hidden and inward euill, as by corrupt & contagious humors, procéeding either of too great heat & moisture of the head, or otherwise ouermuch drought & siccity of the liuer & inward parts, frō which procéedeth many times the pantas & shortnes of breath, & other perilous euils, whereof I mean to write in their peculiar places hereafter.

Again, hawkes are accustomed to be ill affected and diseased (as I may tearm it) in their feathers, for that diuers times be∣ing found of body, & in perfect state of health, yet they cannot flée or stir their wings, by meane of some broken or sliued fea∣thers, & especially the flags, long feathers, or sacels, which sun∣dry times are broken either in the quil, being bloody feathers, or neare the top or point of the feather: the remedy for which mischief & euil accident, I will reserue to the last part of this treatise, as a matter méetest for that place. But because y^e mis∣chiefes and diseases that grow within the bodies of the hawks may be best discerned and known by their excrement, & by that which cōmeth from them, as namely, by the casting & mu••t of a hawke. Therfore I account it most expedient, to haue good iudgemēt to distinguish and know the diuersity and difference

thereof, the better to come by the true knowledge of the disea∣ses, wherby there may in good time be had a conuenient reme∣dy for the euill Wherfore let vs first speake of their castings.