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346
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY..
[DECEMBER, 1877.
wert ignorant, and not always bustling, nor make a charming coiffure, by binding and braidalways thumbing Æsop, who spake of the crested ing it with the locks of their own natural hair. lark, calling it the first of all birds, born before The length of a hair is two cubits, and from a ever the earth was; and telling how afterwards single root there sprout out, in the form of a her father became sick and died, and how that, fringe, somewhere about thirty hairs. The as the earth did not then exist, he lay unburied animal itself is the most timid that is known, for till the fifth day, when his daughter, unable to should it perceive that any one is looking at it, it tind .grave elsewhere, dug one for him in her starts off at its utmost speed, and runs right own head."
forward, but its eagerness to escape is greater It seems, accordingly, probable that the fable, than the rapidity of its pace. It is hunted with though with a different bird for its subject, horses and hounds good to run. When it sees emanated from the Indians, and spread onward that it is on the point of being caught, it hides its even to the Greeks. For the Brachmanes say tail in some near thicket, while it stands at bay that a prodigious time has elapsed since the facing its pursuers, whom it watches narrowly. It Indian hoopoe, then in human form and young even plucks up courage in a way, and thinks that in years, performed that act of piety to its since its tail is hid from view the hunters will not parents.
care to capture it, for it knows that its tail is the (6.) In India there is an animal closely resem- great object of attraction. But it finds this to bling in appearance the land crocodile, and some- be, of course, a vain delusion, for some one hits where about the size of a little Maltese dog. It it with a poisoned dart, who then flays off the is covered all over with a scaly skin so rough entire skin (for this is of value) and throws away altogether and compact that when flayed off it is the carcase, as the Indians make no use of any used by the Indians as a file. It cuts through part of its flesh. brass and eats iron. They call it the phattages (12.) But further : whales are to be found (pangolin or scaly ant-enter) ....... in the Indian Sea, and these five times larger
(8.) The Indian sea breeds sea-snakes which than the largest elephant. A rib of this monhave broad tails, and the lakes breed hydras of strous fish measures as much as twenty cubits, immense size, but these sea-snakes appear to and its lip fifteen cubits. The fins near the inflict a bite more sharp than poisonous.
gills are each of them so much as seven cubits (9.) In India there are herds of wild horses, in breadth. The shell-fish called Kêrukes are and also of wild asses. They say that the mares also met with, and the purple-fish of a size submit to be covered by the asses, and enjoy that would admit it easily into a gallon measuch coition, and breed mules, which are of a sure, while on the other hand the shell of the reddish colour and very fleet, but impatient of sea-urehin is large enough to cover comthe yoke and otherwise skittish. They say that pletely a measure of that size. But fish in India they catch these mules with foot-traps, and then attain enormous dimensions, especially the sea take them to the king of the Prasians, and that wolves, the thunnies, and the golden-eyebrows. if they are caught when two years old they do I hear also that at the season when the rivers are not refuse to be broken in, but if caught when swollen, and with their full and boisterous flood beyond that age they differ in no respect from deluge all the land, the fish are carried into the sharp-toothed and carnivorous animals.
fields, where they swim and wander to and fro, (Fragm. XII. B follows here.)
even in shallow water, and that when the rains (11.) There is found in India a graminivorous which flood the rivers cease, and the waters reanimal which is double the size of a horse, and tiring from the land resume their natural chanwhich has a very bushy tail purely black innels, then in the low-lying tracts and in flat colour. The hair of this tail is finer than hu- and marshy grounds, where we may be sure the man hair, and its possession is a point on which so-called Nine are wont to have some watery reIndian women set great store, for therewith they cesses (roAtrove), fish even of eight cubits' length I Lines 470-75:
Earth was not: five days lay the old bird untombed: at last "You're such a dull incurious lot, unread in sop's lore, the eon Whose story says the lark was born first of the feathered Buried the father in his head, since other grave was
none." Before the earth; thon comes cold and carried off his wire:
Dr. Kennedy's translation.
qaire,
