Note 82 — The Thirteenth New Year’s Feast

On the eve of Mubārak-s͟hamba (Thursday) the 21st, the sāras hatched one young one, and on the eve of Monday, the 25th, a second: that is, one young one was hatched after thirty-four82 days, and the other after thirty-six days. One might say that they were one-tenth83 larger than the young of a goose, or equal to the young of the peafowl at the age of a month. Their skin was of a blue colour. On the first day they ate nothing, and from the second day the mother, taking small locusts (or grasshoppers) in her mouth, sometimes fed them like a pigeon, or sometimes like a fowl threw them before them for them to pick up of themselves. If the locust were small, it went off well, but if it were large, she sometimes made two or three pieces of it so that the young ones might eat it with ease. As I had a great liking for seeing them I ordered them to be brought before me with every precaution that no harm might happen to them. After I had seen them I ordered them to be taken back to the same little garden inside the royal enclosure, and to be preserved with the greatest care, and that they should be brought to me again whenever they were able to walk.