156 Birds in Sanskrit Literature stream, and shone upon at times by the sun-beams it may give some faint idea of the brilliant plumage that sports in the forests of the tropics and that flits from place to place like so many lights in their deeply shaded recesses." It may well be called a gem or multi-coloured flower as indeed it has been in Sanskrit, viz., , a Kingfisher (shining like a jewel or a flower- "मणीचक प्रसूनं" and "मणी पुष्पमौक्तिकयोरपि"- बंजयन्ती; cf सुवर्णपुष्प for the brilliantly coloured Sun-birds, Art. 30; go, the beautifully ocellated, black and scarlet Tragopans, Art. 55-B; and #f, the rainbow). in the sense of 'moon-stone,' which is entirely white, does not suit any King- fisher. gfs (beautifully painted), again, for a Kingfisher, should be another name for this bird corresponding to her fafar (the beautiful Kingfisher) for it in Hindi. 4. The White-breasted Kingfisher (11") is mainly a land bird and feeds largely on insects, lizards, frogs and such small fry, which it captures after the manner of a Roller, flying down to them on the ground from an eleva- ted perch. The flight is strong and direct, and on the wing a loud scream- ing cry is uttered which is one of the familiar sounds of India (Whistler). It is found both near and away from human habitations and is by no means i closely dependent on the presence of water for its sustenance. Its voice has been described by Salim Ali as a loud cackling call. This bird is eviden- tly the चन्द्रकान्त ( चन्द्रवत् कान्तं वपुरस्य, from its white breast ) cf its name in from Sanskrit , a half-moon or crescent. This may be the faff of the Rgveda-but see below. Marathi 5. The Brown-headed Stork-billed Kingfisher (15") is a big bird as Kingfishers go, being a little smaller than a Pigeon, and can be readily. distinguished from all other brightly coloured birds the group not only from its size also from its enormous pointed, red bill. A bird of well- watered and well-wooded country, it is found all over the sub-continent except the dry regiors like the extreme North-West, Sind and Rajasthan. Its chief diet consists of fish, crabs, reptiles, etc., and its "hoarse explosive chattering call or 'laugh', ke-ke-ke-ke-ke-ke, repeated every little while, bears a general resemblance to the White-breasted Kingfisher's, but is louder. and more raucus" (Salim Ali). It is evidently the or (crab, crabby) of the lexicons wrongly identified with te in mariffar perhaps because it stands nearest to the latter in sound. On the other hand, the name would seem to be after the crab-eating habit of the bird. A crab, before it can be eaten or swallowed, must be battered on a stone or a tree-branch and this habit of the bird has given it the name of (the thrasher) also in Sanskrit. Palig for a bird (Sanskrit , a crab) in the following, rendered as (2) in the commentary, is clearly the same and strongly supports the above identification: "कुकुट्ठका कुलीरका कोट्ठ पोक्खरसातका" वेस्संतर जातक, Verse 2104. Kingfishers 157 e is Sanskrit for the Hoopoe (Art. 43), and since the first two and the last names are in the plural it would be incorrect to separate in the singular, and the proper way to treat the compound "कोट्ठपोखरसातका" is to analyse it as कोट्ठसातका and पोक्खरसातका. Both these, as names of Water-birds, would then be the Cotton Teal, which nests. in holes in trees in the neighbourhood of water, and the Whiskered Tern, which nests on a lotus-leaf, respectively (Arts. 84-C and 69). If on the other hand is to be taken by itself for a particular bird as in the Pali Dictionary (P.T.S.), it may be the same of the 4 for a hooting or Large Owl, probably the Brown Fish Owl which nests and also often spends the day in a tree-hole. 6. The Stork-billed bird appears to be the Vedic foffa:- "सार्क यक्ष्म प्रपत चाषेण किकिदीविना"- RV 10.97.13. Here the cough of a person suffering from asthma is asked to quit the patient and go away with or to the the Roller bird, and the किकिदीवि, the Brown-headed Stork-billed Kingfisher, both of which have harsh croaking or screaming "ke-ke-ke-ke-" notes resembling a fit of coughing. The proximity of the two names in the verse has led almost all the lexicographers to treat them as synonymous, but i commenting on it has held them to be two different birds:- "चाषाख्येन पक्षिणा सह तथा किकिदीविना पक्षिणा च सह" At other places ((तेत्ति. संहिता, 5.6.22 and तैत्ति ब्राह्मण, 2.5.8), however, he has rendered fefefe as a fafer or Partridge which is clearly incorrect. The important point is that he did not regard the two names as synonymous despite the lexical equations before him. The charm against jaundice in RV 1.50.12 mentions three different birds which makes it more than probable that and fff in the above verse are two different birds. Griffith in his translation of the Rgveda has correctly rendered them as the Blue Jay and the Kingfisher. has 7. पेरुमूरि in his औणादिक पदार्णव mentions that some authorities have split up faff into two words, fefe and ef, the first of which means a kind of bird and the second an animal of prey (द्वीपिन् ?), and श्वेतवनवासिन् s accepted this and given किकि for a kind of bird. But "किकीति कुर्वन् दीव्यति किकिदीवि:" of उणादि भोजीयानि seems to be the only correct analysis of the name. Nevertheless fefe or fest seems to have been in common use as an abbreviation, for we find fet e or ft as a bird with a harsh and unpleasant voice in the सुजात जातक, and कल्पद्रुकोश has the equation “दीदिविस्तु किकीविक:” which agrees with fafefव (the कि कि call + वि -a bird) in the supplement of M. Williams. We thus have three more names for this noisy King-fisher दीदिवि (the shining one), किकि or किकिवि and किकीविक (one calling out ki-ki, ki-ki) and they correspond to Hindi frafeer (दलेलदरेर very noisy) for it.
