The Memoirs of Bābur 932.10.3

932.10.3

The Indian bustard (P. _kharchāl_)[1799] is another. It is about as large as the (T.) _tūghdāq_ (_Otis tarda_, the great bustard), and seems to be the _tūghdāq_ of Hindūstān.[1800] Its flesh is delicious; of some birds the leg is good, of others, the wing; of the bustard all the meat is delicious and excellent. The florican (P. _charz_)[1801] is another. It is rather less than the _tūghdīrī_ (_houbara_)[1802]; the cock's back is like the _tūghdīrī's_, and its breast is black. The hen is of one colour. The Hindūstān sand-grouse (T. _bāghrī-qarā_)[1803] is another. It is smaller and slenderer than the _bāghrī-qarā_ [_Pterocles arenarius_] of those countries (Tramontana). Also its cry is sharper. Of the birds that frequent water and the banks of rivers, one is the _dīng_,[1804] an animal of great bulk, each wing measuring a _qūlāch_ (fathom). It has no plumage (_tūqī_) on head or neck; a thing like a bag hangs from its neck; its back is black; its breast is white. It goes sometimes to Kābul; one year people brought one they had caught. It became very tame; if meat were thrown to it, it never failed to catch it in its bill. Once it swallowed a six-nailed shoe, another time a whole fowl, wings [Sidenote: Fol. 280b.] and feathers, all right down.