Note 162 — IBRAHIM BIN AL-MAHDI AND THE BARBER-SURGEON.

The Katá (sand-grouse) always enters into Arab poetry because it is essentially a desert bird; and here the comparison is good because it lays its eggs in the waste far from water which it must drink morning and evening. Its cry is interpreted “man sakat, salam” (silent and safe), but it does not practice that precept, for it is usually betrayed by its piping Kata! Kata! Hence the proverb, “More veracious than the sand-grouse;” and “Speak not falsely, for the Kata sayeth sooth,” is Komayt’s saying. It is an emblem of swiftness: when the brigand-poet Shanfara boasts, “The ash-coloured Katas can drink only my leavings, after hastening all night to slake their thirst in the morning,” it is a hyperbole boasting of his speed. In Sind it is called the “rock pigeon” and it is not unlike a grey partridge when on the wing.