c. A.D. 250.—"They bring also greenish (ὠχρὰς) pigeons which they say can never be tamed or domesticated."—Aelian, De Nat. Anim. xv. 14.
" "There are produced among the Indians ... pigeons of a pale green colour (χλωρόπτιλοι); any one seeing them for the first time, and not having any knowledge of ornithology, would say the bird was a parrot and not a pigeon. They have legs and bill in colour like the partridges of the Greeks."—Ibid. xvi. 2.
1673.—"Our usual diet was (besides Plenty of Fish) Water-Fowl, Peacocks, Green Pidgeons, Spotted Deer, Sabre, Wild Hogs, and sometimes Wild Cows."—Fryer, 176.
1825.—"I saw a great number of pea-fowl, and of the beautiful greenish pigeon common in this country...."—Heber, ii. 19.
GREY PARTRIDGE. The common Anglo-Indian name of the Hind. tītar, common over a great part of India, Ortygornis Ponticeriana, Gmelin. "Its call is a peculiar loud shrill cry, and has, not unaptly, been compared to the word Pateela-pateela-pateela, quickly repeated but preceded by a single note, uttered two or three times, each time with a higher intonation, till it gets, as it were, the key-note of its call."—Jerdon, ii. 566.
GRIBLEE, s. A graplin or grapnel. Lascars' language (Roebuck).
GRIFFIN, GRIFF, s.; GRIFFISH, adj. One newly arrived in India, and unaccustomed to Indian ways and peculiarities; a Johnny Newcome. The origin of the phrase is unknown to us. There was an Admiral Griffin who commanded in the Indian seas from Nov. 1746 to June 1748, and was not very fortunate. Had his name to do with the origin of the term? The word seems to have been first used at Madras (see Boyd, below). [But also see the quotation from Beaumont & Fletcher, below.] Three references below indicate the parallel terms formerly used by the Portuguese at Goa, by the Dutch in the Archipelago, and by the English in Ceylon.
[c. 1624.—"Doves beget doves, and eagles eagles, Madam: a citizen's heir, though never so rich, seldom at the best proves a gentleman."—Beaumont & Fletcher, Honest Man's Fortune, Act III. sc. 1, vol. iii. p. 389, ed. Dyce. Mr. B. Nicolson (3 ser. Notes and Queries, xi. 439) points out that Dyce's MS. copy, licensed by Sir Henry Herbert in 1624, reads "proves but a griffin gentleman." Prof. Skeat (ibid. xi. 504) quoting from Piers Plowman, ed. Wright, p. 96, "Gryffyn the Walshe," shows that Griffin was an early name for a Welshman, apparently a corruption of Griffith. The word may have been used abroad to designate a raw Welshman, and thus acquired its present sense.]
1794.—"As I am little better than an unfledged Griffin, according to the fashionable phrase here" (Madras).—Hugh Boyd, 177.
1807.—"It seems really strange to a griffin—the cant word for a European just arrived."—Ld. Minto, in India, 17.