202 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 



on pila, or salan [salan, anything eaten with bread or with rice, and specially vegetables 

 cooked with meat, such as curry, etc. Game-fowls are fed from the hand, and are not 

 allowed to pick up food from the ground, lest the beak should become worn. Some 

 game-fowl were so wedded to the hand that they will starve rather than pick up food 

 from the ground] — etc., i.e., whatever the cocker eats himself, and give it halwa, of 

 yolks of eggs. 



" In the morning give half a belly-full of the halwa, and on the top of it half a 

 belly-full of balls of coarse wheaten flour. After exercising the cock, put on the 

 muzzle, spout water over its face, shampoo (by grasping and pressing all the limbs 

 and joints) with the hand, and confine in a qalqul or square coop, releasing it at four 

 in the afternoon. After a time look and see if it is thirsty, and if it is, take it out 

 of the coop and give it water. At four o'clock release it. If it is thirsty it will drink. 

 If it is not thirsty and won't drink, then again spout it and shampoo it, and exercise it 

 for an hour. After that bring it into the house, and confining a hen in a small basket- 

 cage, let loose the cockerel that it may see the hen and run round and round her, and by 

 the exercise increase his strength, but do not let him mate with the hen. After running, 

 lift up the cockerel, and shampoo him. In the evening see whether the cock has 

 digested its food. If it has, then in the evening too give it halwa, etc., as before. If, 

 however, the cock has not digested its morning meal, give it a few whole pepper-corns ; 

 the cocker had, too, better continue to give it pepper-corns in the evening, and keep it 

 awake by lamp-light for an hour, tickling it under the pope's nose to make it oil itself. 

 Then setting it down on a swing made out of a child's cot, swing it for an hour, or else 

 place it on a perch. Then confine it somewhere in a safe place in a basket-cage. In 

 the morning at prayer-time [i.e. about an hour before sunrise] take it out of the coop, 

 give it water to drink, and then spout it, and, putting on the muzzle, let it exercise itself 

 for a full hour. After this feed it. You must gradually increase the amount of halwa, and 

 decrease the amount of flour, feeding and treating the bird as already described for forty 

 days. Once a week too, at night, you must foment it with a damp, hot pad, fomenting 

 those parts of the body that have accumulated fat. The places to foment are, first from 

 the head to the neck, or rather to the shoulders, next the two wings on the top, next the 

 thighs inside and outside, also the hip-joints and the loins, and underneath between the 

 legs, omitting the lower stomach, and also the breast. The object of fomenting is to 

 make flesh and joints hard and strong. 



" When the cockerel is ten months old, fight it one panl with a dalba of its own 

 age, but first put the muzzle on to the dalba. Afterwards spout and suck the cock's beak 

 and face well, to remove blood-spots, and damp a rag in water and clean the inside of 

 the throat with it." 



The dalba is muzzled and hobbled before being pitted against its aristocratic 

 antagonist. 



One writer states that a cockerel should not be fought till he is one year old, and 

 that he should then be pitted against one of his own age for five minutes the first day, 

 ten the second, and fifteen the third, and then for as long as desirable ; and that at the 

 expiration of the fixed time the birds should be separated and their beaks sucked and 

 blown upon. (If a child falls and hurts itself, Indians generally blow upon the seat of 

 injury with the idea of cooling the spot and lessening the pain.) 



