(2) In Egypt the word baḥrī has acquired the sense of northern, presumably referring to what lies or is borne across its northern sea, the Mediterranean.
(3) Vigne (Travels in Kashmīr ii, 277-8) warns against confounding the qūch-qār i.e. the gigantic moufflon, Pallas’ Ovis ammon, with the Kosh-gau, the cow of the Kaucasus, i.e. the yāk. He says, “Kaucasus (hodie Hindū-kush) was originally from Kosh, and Kosh is applied occasionally as a prefix, e.g. Kosh-gau, the yāk or ox of the mountain or Kaucasus.” He wrote from Skardo in Little Tibet and on the upper Indus. He gives the name of the female yāk as yāk-mo and of the half-breeds with common cows as bzch, which class he says is common and of “all colours”.
(4) Mr. Ney Elias’ notes (Tārīkh-i-rashīdī trs. pp. 302 and 466) on the qūt̤ās are of great interest. He gives the following synonymous names for the wild yāk, Bos Poëphagus, Khāsh-gau, the Tibetan yāk or Dong.
(5) Hume and Henderson (Lāhor to Yārkand p. 59) write of the numerous black yāk-hair tents seen round the Pangong Lake, of fine saddle yāks, and of the tame ones as being some white or brown but mostly black.
(6) Olufsen’s Through the Unknown Pamirs (p. 118) speaks of the large numbers of Bos grunniens (yāk) domesticated by the Kirghiz in the Pamirs.
(7) Cf. Gazetteer of India s.n. yāk.
(8) Shaikh Zain applies the word baḥrī to the porpoise, when paraphrasing the Bābur-nāma f. 281b.
N.—NOTES ON A FEW BIRDS.
In attempting to identify some of the birds of Bābur’s lists difficulty arises from the variety of names provided by the different tongues of the region concerned, and also in some cases by the application of one name to differing birds. The following random gleanings enlarge and, in part, revise some earlier notes and translations of Mr. Erskine’s and my own. They are offered as material for the use of those better acquainted with bird-lore and with Himālayan dialects.
a. Concerning the lūkha, lūja, lūcha, kūja (f.135 and f.278b).