N. NOTES ON A FEW BIRDS.
In attempting to identify some of the birds of Babur's lists difficulty arises from the variety of names provided by the different tongues of the region concerned, and also in some cases by the application of one name to differing birds. The following random gleanings enlarge and, in part, revise some earlier notes and translations of Mr. Erskine's and my own. They are offered as material for the use of those better acquainted with bird-lore and with Himalayan dialects.
a. Concerning the liikha, luja, liicha, kuja (f. 135 and f.278^).
The nearest word I have found to liikha and its similars is likkh, a florican (Jerdon, ii, 615), but the florican has not the chameleon colours of the liikha (var.). As Babur when writing in Hindustan, uses such "book-words" as Ar. bahri(qiitds) and Ar. bu-qalamun (chameleon), it would not be strange if his name for the " liikha " bird represented Ar. awja, very beautiful, or connected with Ar. lok, shining splendour.
The form kuja is found in Ilminsky's imprint p. 301 {Mimoires ii, 198, koudjeh).
What is confusing to translators is that (as it now seems to me) Babur appears to use the name kabg-i-dari'in both passages (f. 135 and f.278^) to represent two birds ; (1) he compares the liikha as to size with the kabg-i-dari of the Kabul region, and (2) for size and colour with that of Hindustan. But the bird of the Western Himalayas known by the name kabg-i-dari is the Himalayan snow-cock, Tetraogallus himalayensis, Turkl, aiildr and in the Kabul region, chiurtika (f.249, Jerdon, ii, 549-5°) ! while the kabg-i-dari (syn. chikor) of Hindustan, whether of hill or plain, is one or more of much smaller birds.
The snow-cock being 28 inches in length, the lukha bird must be of this size. Such birds as to size and plumage of changing colour are the Lophophori and Trapagons, varieties of which are found in places suiting Babur's account of the lukha.
