Indian Antiquary Vol 14

SR No.: 032506
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: John Faithfull Fleet, Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 418
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 18 MB

Page 323

OCTOBER, 1885.)
ANIMALS AND PLANTS OF INDIA.
287
tail."
seventh century, to an animal which is most this to be, of course, a vain delusion, for someprobably the same as one described by Ælian one hits it with a poisoned dart, who in the passage quoted below. Taking both then Aays off the entire skin (for this is of of these accounts together, I do not hesitate to value), and throws away the carcass, as the identify it with the Yak, which occurs not in Indians make no use of any part of its India, but north of the Himalayan snow ranges. flesh." Yaks' tails are even at the present time & Kosmas describes it as "an animal of great regular trade commodity, brought into India size, belonging to India, and from it is got through Nepal and other frontier states, and what is called the toupha," wherewith the they are much used by Indian potentates for captains of armies decorate their horses and various decorative purposes, insignia, &c., and their standards when taking the field. They from them are also made the more humble fly- say of it that if its tail be caught by a tree, it whisks carried by horsemen.
no longer stoops, but remains standing through Ælian seys" :-“There is found in India &
its unwillingness to lose even & single hair. graminivorous animal (Fromáywy taww), which
On seeing this, the people of the neighbourhood is double the size of a horse, and which has a approach and cut off the tail, and then the very bushy tail, very black in colour. The creature flies off when docked entirely of its hair of this tail is finer than human hair, and its possession is a point on which Indian women set great store, for therewith they
17. THE PHATTAGES (Darráyns). make a charming coiffare, by binding and braiding it with locks of their own natural hair.
Manis pentadactyla, Linn. (?)-The Pangolin. The length of a hair is two cubits, and from a In Alian's elsewhere quoted account of the single root there spring out in the form of a animals of India," which, from internal evi. fringe somewhere about thirty hairs."
dence, is considered by Schwanbeck, as pointed Elian gives also a second and separate de out by Mr. M'Crindle, to have been largely scription of an animal shaped liked a satyr, borrowed from Megasthenes, the following covered all over with shaggy hair, and having a passage occurs : tail like a horse's. It was found in the moun- "In India there is an animal closely resemtains skirting the inland frontier of India, in a bling the land crocodile, and somewhere about district called Korinda. When pursued it fled the size of a little Maltese dog. It is covered up the mountain sides, rolling down stones on all over with a scaly skin, so rough altogether, its assailants. This, I think, was probably also and so compact, that when flayed off it is used the Yak. Compilers like Ælian have often by the Indians as a file. It cuts through brass, mentioned the same object twice ander different and cats iron. They call it the phattagés." titles. "The animal itself is the most timid It has been identified by Mr. M'Crindle with that is known, for should it perceive that any- j the pangolin, or scaly ant-eater. This identi. one is looking at it, it starts off at its utmost fication may, perhaps, be correct; but I must speed, and runs right forward; but its eager- confess to some reluctance in accepting it, noss' to escape is greater than the rapidity of its since the bajr-kit, as it is called in Hindustani, pace. It is hunted with horses and hounds, (Skr. vajra-loita) seems scarcely to answer the good to run. When it sees that it is on the description so well as would one of the land point of being caught, it hides its tail in some lizards, Varanus, or the water lizards, Hydronear thicket, while it stands at bay, facing its saurus. In any case, the statement that the pursuers, whom it watches narrowly. It even skins are used as & file capable of cutting plucks up courage in a way, and thinks that metals must be regarded as apocryphal. The since its tail is hid from view the hunters will scales and fesh are used medicinally by the not care to capture it, for it knows that its tail natives, being supposed to possess aphrodisiac is the great object of attraction. But it finds | properties.
Class, in Babar's Memoirs, Erskine, p. 249. 10 Hist. Anim., xvi. 11. c. M'Crindle's Megasthonda, De Mundo, ri. P. 164
Hist. Anim., IV. 6. 04. M'Crindle's Megasthends, " Called tugh, an emblem of Noblemen of the First p. 163.