Page:Ancient India as described by Megasthenês and Arrian.djvu/179

160 and pale-green ringdoves. One wLo is not well-versed in bird-lore, seeing these for the first time, would take them to be parrots, and not pigeons. In the colour of the bill and legs they resemble Greek partridges. There are also cocks, which are of extraordinary siie, and have their crests not red as elsewhere, or at least in our country, but have the flower-like coronals o/ which the crest is formed variously coloured. Their rump feathers, again, are neither curved nor wreathed, biit are of great* breadth, and they trail them in the way peacocks trail their tails, when they neither straighten nor erect them : the feathers of these Indian cocks are in colour golden, and also dark-blue like the sma- ragdus. (3) There is found in India also another re- markahle bird. This is of the size of a starling and is parti-coloured, and is trained to utter the sounds of human speech. It is even more talka- tive than the parrot, and of greater natural clever- ness. So far is it from submitting with pleasure to be fed by man, that it rather has such a pining for freedom, and such a longing to warble at will in the society of its mates, that it prefers starvation to slavery with sumptuous fare. It is called by the Makedonians who settled among the Indians in the city ofBoukephala and its neighbour- hood, and in the city called Europolis, and others which Alexander the son of Philip built, the Kerkv&n. This name had, I believe, its on-