Note 143 — THE HISTORY OF AL-BUNDUKANI. OR, THE CALIPH HARUN AL-RASHID AND THE DAUGHTER OF KING KISRA.

The Katá grouse (Tetrao alchata seu arenarius of Linn.) has often been noticed by me in Pilg. i. 226, (where my indexer called it “sand goose”) and in The Nights (vols. i. 131; iv. 111). De Sacy (Chrestom. Arab. iii. pp. 416, 507–509) offers a good literary account of it: of course he cannot speak from personal experience. He begins with the Ajáib al-Makhlúkát by Al-Kazwini (ob. A.H. 674 = A.D. 1274) who tells us that the bird builds in the desert a very small nest (whence the Hadís, “Whoso shall build to Allah a mosque, be it only the bigness of a Katá’s nest, the Lord shall edify for him a palace in Paradise”); that it abandons its eggs which are sometimes buried in sand, and presently returns to them (hence the saying, “A better guide than the Katá”); that it watches at night (?) and that it frequents highways to reconnoitre travellers (??), an interpretation confirmed by the Persian translator. Its short and graceful steps gave rise to the saying, “She hath the gait of a Katá,” and makes De Sacy confound the bird with the Pers. Káhú or Kabk-i-dari (partridge of the valley) which is simply the francolin, the Ital. francolino, a perdix. The latter in Arab. is “Durráj” (Al-Mas’udi, vii. 347): see an affecting story connected with it in the Suppl. Nights, ii. 59–62. In the xxiiid Ass. of Al-Hariri the sagacity of the Katá is alluded to, “I crossed rocky places, to which the Katá would not find its way.” See also Ass. viii. But Mr. Chenery repeats a mistake when he says (p. 339) that the bird is “never found save where there is good pasturage and water:” it haunts the wildest parts of Sind and Arabia, although it seldom strays further than 60 miles from water which it must drink every evening. I have never shot the Katá since he saved my party from a death by thirst on a return-ride from Harar (First Footsteps in E. Africa, p. 388). The bird is very swift with a skurrying flight like a frightened pigeon; and it comes to water regularly about dusk when it is easily “potted.”