1580.—"Certaine Wordes of the naturall language of Jaua ... Paree, ryce in the huske."—Sir F. Drake's Voyage, in Hakl. iv. 246.
1598.—"There are also divers other kinds of Rice, of a lesse price, and slighter than the other Ryce, and is called Batte...."—Linschoten, 70; [Hak. Soc. i. 246].
1600.—"In the fields is such a quantity of rice, which they call bate, that it gives its name to the kingdom of Calou, which is called on that account Batecalou."—Lucena, Vida do Padre F. Xavier, 121.
1615.—"... oryzae quoque agri feraces quam Batum incolae dicunt."—Jarric, Thesaurus, i. 461.
1673.—"The Ground between this and the great Breach is well ploughed, and bears good Batty."—Fryer, 67, see also 125. But in the Index he has Paddy.
1798.—"The paddie which is the name given to the rice, whilst in the husk, does not grow ... in compact ears, but like oats, in loose spikes."—Stavorinus, tr. i. 231.
1837.—"Parrots brought 900,000 loads of hill-paddy daily, from the marshes of Chandata,—mice husking the hill-paddy, without breaking it, converted it into rice."—Turnour's Mahawanso, 22.
1871.—"In Ireland Paddy makes riots, in Bengal raiyats make paddy; and in this lies the difference between the paddy of green Bengal, and the Paddy of the Emerald Isle."—Govinda Samanta, ii. 25.
1878.—"Il est établi un droit sur les riz et les paddys exportés de la Colonie, excepté pour le Cambodge par la voie du fleuve."—Courrier de Saigon, Sept. 20.
PADDY-BIRD, s. The name commonly given by Europeans to certain baser species of the family Ardeidae or Herons, which are common in the rice-fields, close in the wake of grazing cattle. Jerdon gives it as the European's name for the Ardeola leucoptera, Boddaert, andhā baglā ('blind heron') of the Hindus, a bird which is more or less coloured. But in Bengal, if we are not mistaken, it is more commonly applied to the pure white bird—Herodias alba, L., or Ardea Torra, Buch. Ham., and Herodias egrettoides, Temminck, or Ardea putea, Buch. Ham.