c. A.D. 250.—"And I hear that there is in India a bird Kēla, which is 3 times as big as a bustard; it has a mouth of a frightful size, and long legs, and it carries a huge crop which looks like a leather bag; it has a most dissonant voice, and whilst the rest of the plumage is ash-coloured, the tail-feathers are of a pale (or greenish) colour."—Aelian, de Nat. Anim. xvi. 4.
c. 1530.—"One of these (fowls) is the dīng, which is a large bird. Each of its wings is the length of a man; on its head and neck there is no hair. Something like a bag hangs from its neck; its back is black, its breast white; it frequently visits Kābul. One year they caught and brought me a dīng, which became very tame. The flesh which they threw it, it never failed to catch in its beak, and swallowed without ceremony. On one occasion it swallowed a shoe well shod with iron; on another occasion it swallowed a good-sized fowl right down, with its wings and feathers."—Baber, 321.
1754.—"In the evening excursions ... we had often observed an extraordinary species of birds, called by the natives Argill or Hargill, a native of Bengal. They would majestically stalk along before us, and at first we took them for Indians naked.... The following are the exact marks and dimensions.... The wings extended 14 feet and 10 inches. From the tip of the bill to the extremity of the claw it measured 7 feet 6 inches.... In the craw was a Terapin or land-tortoise, 10 inches long; and a large black male cat was found entire in its stomach."—Ives, 183-4.
1798.—"The next is the great Heron, the Argali or Adjutant, or Gigantic Crane of Latham.... It is found also in Guinea."—Pennant's View of Hindostan, ii. 156.
1810.—"Every bird saving the vulture, the Adjutant (or argeelah) and kite, retires to some shady spot."—Williamson, V. M. ii. 3.
[1880.—Ball (Jungle Life, 82) describes the "snake-stone" said to be found in the head of the bird.]
AFGHÁN, n.p. P.—H—Afghān. The most general name of the predominant portion of the congeries of tribes beyond the N.W. frontier of India, whose country is called from them Afghānistān. In England one often hears the country called Afguníst-un, which is a mispronunciation painful to an Anglo-Indian ear, and even Af'gann, which is a still more excruciating solecism. [The common local pronunciation of the name is Aoghān, which accounts for some of the forms below. Bellew insists on the distinction between the Afghān and the Pathān ([PUTTAN]). "The Afghan is a Pathan merely because he inhabits a Pathan country, and has to a great extent mixed with its people and adopted their language" (Races of Af., p. 25). The name represents Skt. asvaka in the sense of a 'cavalier,' and this reappears scarcely modified in the Assakani or Assakeni of the historians of the expedition of Alexander.]
c. 1020.—"... Afgháns and Khiljis...."—'Utbi in Elliot, ii. 24; see also 50, 114.
c. 1265.—"He also repaired the fort of Jalálí, which he garrisoned with Afgháns."—Táríkh-i-Fírozsháhí in do. iii. 106.
14th cent.—The Afghans are named by the continuator of Rashiduddin among the tribes in the vicinity of Herat (see N. & E. xiv. 494).