Note 47 — The Sixteenth New Year’s Feast after the Auspicious Accession

Bāsoʾī,47 the zamindar of Talwāra, brought me a bird, which the hill-people call jān-bahan. Its tail resembles the tail of the qirqāwul (pheasant), which is also called the tazrū, and its colour is exactly like that of the hen-pheasant, but it is half as large again. The circle round the eyes of this bird is red, while the orbit of the pheasant is white. The said Bāsoʾī stated that this bird lived in the snow-mountains, and that its food was grass and other stuff. I have kept pheasants and have reared young ones, and have often eaten the flesh both of young birds and of mature ones. One may say that there is no comparison between the flesh of the pheasant and this bird. The flesh of the latter is much more delicate. Among the birds which I saw in the hill-country one was the phūl-paikār,48 which the Kashmiris call sonlū. It is one-eighth (nīm sawāʾī?) less than a pea-hen. The back, tail, and wings resemble those of the bustard, and are blackish, with white spots. The breast to the end of the bosom is black, with white spots, and some red ones. The ends of the feathers are fiery red, and very lustrous and beautiful. From the end of the back of the neck it is also brilliantly black. On the top of its head it has two fleshy horns of a turquoise colour. The skin of its orbits and round its mouth is red. Below its throat there is skin round it enough to cover the palms of two hands, and in the middle of this the skin is of a violet colour of the size of a hand, with blue spots in the middle. Around it each streak is of a blue colour, consisting of eight plumes; round the blue streak it is red to the breadth of two fingers, like the peach flower, and again round its neck is that blue-coloured streak: it has red legs also. The live bird, which was weighed, came to 152 tolahs. After it was killed and cleaned it weighed 139 tolahs. Another bird is of a golden colour: this the people of Lahore call S͟han49 (?) and the Kashmiris pūt̤. Its colour is like that of a peacock’s breast. Above its head is a tuft (kākul). Its tail of the width of five fingers is yellow, and is like the long feather (s͟hah-par) of the peacock, and its body as large as that of a goose. The neck of the goose is long and shapeless: that of this one is short, and has a shape.