168 Birds in Sanskrit Literature of two hundred miles per hour.1 ff, therefore, is a most expressive and accurate name for it as the fastest little bird known, fars of the list. from a quoted by weet under 85.38 of the gefgar is again the Swift which collects into a "ball" (f) and mounts "high into the air as a squealing careering mass" at evening. 8. चरिल्ल in अर्धमागधी means a kind of bird and is the same as चिरिल्ली or feet, and the expression after he means a person who gives protection to Swifts nesting in his house. It is an old belief commonly held both in India and China that the continuous nesting of these birds in a residential house is very auspicious, for it augurs well for prosperity and continuity of the family occupying it. If the nests are inconveniently situated, e.g., over a passage or stair-way, planks are fitted under them to catch the droppings. A similar belief obtains in England too. 9. The Western Palm Swift of North India is known as are in Hindi corresponding to Sanskrit ars, and when it is remembered that implies also a swift, it is but natural to call a Palm Swift a arr. This name does not occur in any currect lexicon but one can hardly doubt. that the bird had it in Sanskrit as well. 10. The efgar mentions gyurs (having one egg or young) as a bird of augury and attributes to it the habit of swooping down on the surface of a stream or tank ("aternife geges:"). These charac- teristics agree very well with the habits and ways of the Crested Swift, an ashy grey bird with a deeply forked tail and resembling a Swallow in flight. It is a forest bird, freely perching on the top-most bran- ches which are leafless or dead. The call is a loud and Parrot-like 'kia, kia, kia' (which may also be rendered as 'chia, chia, chia') frequently uttered either from a perch or on the wing. The bird is particularly noisy in the evening when preparing to roost. "Should there be a tank or pool of water or river near its haunts this Swift is fond of descending rapidly from the air to the surface of the water, touching it and mounting again in one graceful curve" (Whistler). It makes a tiny nest on the side of a horizontal branch, barely half an inch deep and so small as to be covered completely by two anna-pieces placed side by side. The single egg it lays completely fills the nest. It is clearly the gas of the Samhită. 11. One of the most poctic hymns of the Rgveda is the art, and its second verse mentions two birds, qur and fafere as playing music to the goddess of the forest:- "वृषारवाय बदते यदुपावति चिच्चिकः । आघाटिरिव धावयन्नरण्यानिर्महीयते ।।" Rgveda, 10.146.2 1. "Birds, Trees and Flowers", pp. 15 & 129. 2. "Adventures in Woodcraft", 52. See Art. 25 for a similar idea about the qurft or Swallow. 3. 87.6. Swifts 169 M. Williams explains que as a kind of animal and fefe as a kind of bird. in his gloss on this Vedic verse takes the first for feet or the Cicada Fly and the second for another insect with a 'chi, chi' call, probably a cricket or green grasshopper which has such a call. Comment- ing on affer. wg II.5.5.6 where this verse occurs, he however renders both as birds: "वृष्टिकाले रवः शब्दविशेषो पक्षिविशेषस्य सोऽयं वृषारवः ..वृषारवाय पक्षिणे प्रत्युत्तरवादी चिच्चिकाख्योऽन्यः पक्षी.....उक्तिप्रत्युक्तिरूपचिच्चिशब्दसहस्राणि- कुर्वद्भिः सूक्ष्मैः पक्षिविशेष: युक्ता इयमरण्यानिः शोभते ।” Apparently the commentator had good reason to revise his opinion by the time he came to annotate the Brâhmaṇa, and for one thing, he must have come to know that the descriptive title of w(Bird-hymn) had been applied long long ago to either the "af" verse of RV 1.164.20 or in the alternative to the verse quoted above. It is therefore submitted that the later interpretation of and fefe as particular birds by सायण is correct. Further we have चिच्चिका in Prakrit and सवा and लट्वा in Sanskrit as names for musical instruments, probably 'whistles', each named after the bird whose call it imitated. 12. The name ( to rain, and are to call, i.e. some sort of a rain-bird) is probably the same as घनारव of the कल्पकोश- "धनारवश्व rig", the Hawk-Cuckoo which is very vocal at the beginning of and during the rains. ff is obviously an onomatopoetic name for a small bird (geeft) comparable with for the House-Swift and Swallow. The Crested Swift, as we have seen, is a forest bird and has a loud 'chia, chia, chia' call. It hawks for insects in parties in a wheeling, graceful flight and is particularly noisy in the evening (Whistler). This, I su is probably ff of the hymn which has been happily conceived to answer back, as it were, to the loud and persistent call notes of the Hawk-Cuckoo.¹ The Hymn is apparently addressed to the goddess of the forest in the evening by a person who is late in coming home or has lost his way through the forest. The fifth verse is perhaps a pointer in this direction. 1. Z. A. Ragozin renders and fefe as Owl and Parrot respectively in Vedic India, p. 279.
