368 Birds in Sanskrit Literature Sandpipers. From a distance they look like Snipe and are therefore known as 'Snippets' which gives the unsportsman-like Anglo-Indian an excuse to shoot them for the pot. Unlike Snipe, however, they are birds of the open, do not take to cover and have not the tricky and fast flight of the Snipe. They are thus easy to kill and are not regarded as 'sport- ing birds'. Excepting a few like the Common Sandpiper and the Redshank most of the members of this group are winter visitors only, and of these the Wood Sandpiper and the Little, Temminck's and the Curlew Stints are the commonest. The Redshanks are known as 4 or, the Greenshank as feufeur (after its piping call), and the Little Stint as tr (lit., 'water-greedy') in Hindi. The a would seem to be related to ve for a kind of bird in the मत्स्यपुराण, 118-"कटुकान् टिटिभान् भटान्" where the association of the name with those for the Lapwings, birds of the same family, is significant. The alternative name ( a self-proclaimed warrior') also points to we, 'a fighter'. That is because the birds often parry against one another on the ground or indulge in aerial mock-fight out of the breeding season but more seriously during that season. The grauifgar, now extant, mentions fr and fre in its list of waterbirds (chapter, 11) and the first name fr (fr) most probably refers to the larger Sandpipers because of their piping notes. We thus have two names for these birds, we and fag. The call of the Little and Curlew or Pigmy Stints is a 'wick-wick- wick' or the same as 'pick-pick-pick' which makes it highly probable that पिक is an onomatopoetic name for them. The Little Stint is पनलोहा (पनलोभा) in Hindi corresponding to जललोभिन्- जलरङ्क (जलायें रङ्क दीन: ) in Sanskrit. This last name has been thoughtlessly confused and equated with w, in the lexicons and commentaries.. The latter, as we have seen, is the Purple Moorhen (Art. 58). The Stints as a group are therefore and पिक, Birds like the Marsh Sandpiper and the Greenshank are known as गोवा in Bengali and if the name is from गोत्र:-गो जलमेव वाणमस्य, it would appear to be but a rendering of. If this is correct may well be a com- mon name for the Sandpipers and Stints together as birds whose mainstay is water. 11. The Ruff and Reeve arrive in India towards the end of August and leave, "the males often in nearly full dress", in April. As the birds breed in northern Europe and Asia, the fights of the males for the possession of the females probably do not take place in this country and they have been named in Hindi and Sanskrit after the extraordinary ruff grown by the male as an ornament during the breeding season. The ruff extends from the nape downwards and covers the entire breast. It is known in Hindi as (-neck, and hair or feathers); Gehwala noted against the bird in the F.B.I. is an obvious misprint just as Panloha (gr) for the Little Stint has become 'Pauloha'. There are also Curlew, Godwit, Sandpiper, Ruff & Reeve, Woodcock, & Snipe 369 several other errors of this type in the work. Hindi a corresponds to Sansk. or as and often change places in Prakrit, and these latter are known as epithets for the Great Crested Grebe because it wears a ruff of long feathers round its neck. This feature is possessed by the male Ruff as well, and in an exaggerated form, and it, therefore, shares the names and with the Grebe.
