104 Birds in Sanskrit Literature In the above extracts the first verse refers to their migratory habit and the traditional belief that they grow a crest towards the end of spring which renders them invisible during the hot weather and the rains, then the crest. is lost and they become visible again just as the star Canopus, called s rises above the horizon some time in August-September. The मुनिपुवक, therefore, poetically represents the bird as the chikl of sage अगस्त्य, It is listed as ऋषिपुत्र in विष्णुधर्मोत्तर, 1.151.46. It is interesting to note that the absence of the Large Pied Crested Cuckoo, the सारङ्ग चातक or दिवौकस for a period of about six months, October, November to June, July, name is explained by the belief underlying the name, frate (living in heaven or high up in the sky, Art. 37). This is also far, but farg for a Wagtail in M. Williams on the authority of Galanos is most probably incorrect (see Ibid). 5. All White Wagtails are extremely tame and make themselves at home in gardens and on open spaces in towns and villages and near about country-huts and houses. The different species visiting India consist of adult and immature birds and their plumage in winter varies a great deal, so much so, that it is impossible to differentiate the species in the field. The classifications in fear and are more or less superficial, based principally on the character of the plumage of the birds at the time of observation. All Yellow Wagtails are गोपुन or गोपीत हारिद्रव as the name of a particular bird occurs twice in the Rgveda, 1.50.12 and 8. 35. 7, and once in the Atharvaveda, 1.22.4 which is the same verse as RV 1.50. 12. It also occurs in the कौशिक सूत्र 26, 18. सायणाचार्यं in his commentary on RV 1.50. 12 has rendered fra as a kind of tree gf, Hindi, Adina Cordifolia, which occurs in sub- Himalayan tracts from the Jumna east-wards. Chloroxylon Swietenia, another with a yellow wood, does not occur north of the Nerbudda), but on RV. 8.35. 7 as a kind of bird (aferfa:) as the reference to the action of flying forced him to adopt that meaning. It is worth noting that he does not give here any synonym for the bird. The commentators of the कौशिकसूज have described हारिद्रव as हरिद्रवर्णाः पीताश्चिटका: (चटका:) at p. 76, f.n., and equated it with free at p. 326, i.e. a Yellow Wagtail. Sayana or his collaborator must have seen this commentary before he commented on the are, and he, therefore, rendered gif in AV. 1.22.4 as the bird but failed to revise his notes on the Rgveda. Both गोपीतिलक and गोपीतनक (गोपीतलक in each case ? ) are evidently the same गोपीत बञ्जन of the बृहत्संहिता But हारिद्रव is more probably, the Golden Oriole See Art. 19. 6. The half verse cited above from (10.9) would seem to show that are stands for any Yellow Wagtail and this finds support from मत्स्यपुराण, 118, 50 and 53 where ब्रजरीटक stands for the Yellow and for the White Wagtails. Similarly afrage, 232, 14 and 16 gives. andre as different birds. The Yellow Wagtails alone perch on trees and the following cited by महेन्द्र in his commentary on अनेकार्थसङ यह of Wagtails and Pipits clinches the point in favour of 105 being the Yellow Wagtails:- "कुजेषु सञ्जन्ति च खञ्ज रीटा:" – (कुजेषु –on trees). Poets and Lexicons have, however, obliterated the distinction. between andre and both these terms have been used for the White Wagtails which are a standard of comparison for beautiful eyes in literature. 7. Names like गोपुत्र, गोपपुव or गोपापुत्र ('dear to the Cows or Cowherds') denote the Grey-Wagtail, the Black-headed and the Yellow-headed Wagtails which "hover round grazing cattle for insects" (Hume) or "assemble in parties and feed among cattle" (Cassall's Book of Birds). The equation "गोपपुवस्तु लोपाको" in the bird section of कल्पद्रुकोश is indicative of their disappearance from the country in summer. aga is mentioned in farogurater, 1.151.48. 8. वजयन्ती कोश gives गोलत्तिका for बजरीटी ic. a female Yellow Wagtail and one of this type is prescribed as a victim for the Spirits of the Waters:- "रोहित कुण्डुणाची गोलत्तिका तेऽप्सरसां" - वाज. संहिता, 24.37. Now these three sacrificial creatures must be closely connected with water and af should be the fish of that name or at best the swamp-deer; gut, rendered as a kind of lizard, must be a water-lizard of the Varanus group, probably the Kabara Goya, a large slender species of water lizard of India which is "equally at home on land or in the water where it swims by means of the flattened tail, the limbs being closely pressed against the sides." Enc. Brit. 14th. Edn. Vol. 14, 247. This Lizard is found in Nepal and reaches a length of 7 ft.-ibid., 11th Edn., Vol. 16, 827.* Turning to गोलतिका (गो, carth or water and लत्तिका a lizard; moving on land or near water like one) there can hardly be any doubt that it is Hodgson's Yellow-headed Wagtail, "the most aquatic of all Wag- tails", which chiefly frequents marshes, and edges of rivers, tanks, etc. If the difficulty of distinguishing the male and female of these birds is borne in mind, it would be better to treat the name in the feminine as an instance. of a fer like many other bird-names in Sanskrit, and it would then be a specific name for the above-named Wagtail. I may add that the selection of a water-lizard and a water-Wagtail makes it highly
- This rendering of
t would perhaps help to explain the movement of a storm crashing upon a forest with the zigzag. turning and twisting motion of a large water-lizard first on the land and then throwing itself into the water with a loud splash, referred to in the Rgveda: "पताति कृष्णाच्या दूरं वाती बनादधि"1.29. 6. Cf. f, the ft creeper, which climbs upon a tree (List of New Words in the Introduction to कौशिक मूत्र).
