The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 by Marco Polo and da Pisa Rusticiano

which answers in colours and grows to 52 inches high. NOTE 5.—_Cator_ occurs only in the G. Text and the Crusca, in the latter with the interpolated explanation “_cioè contornici_” (_i.e._ quails), whilst the S. G. Latin has _coturnices_ only. I suspect this impression has assisted to corrupt the text, and that it was originally written or dictated _ciacor_ or _çacor_, viz. _chakór_, a term applied in the East to more than one kind of “Great Partridge.” Its most common application in India is to the Himalayan red-legged partridge, much resembling on a somewhat larger scale the bird so called in Europe. It is the “Francolin” of Moorcroft’s Travels, and the _Caccabis Chukor_ of Gray. According to Cunningham the name is applied in Ladak to the bird sometimes called the Snow-pheasant, Jerdan’s Snow-cock, _Tetraogallus himalayensis_ of Gray. And it must be the latter which Moorcroft speaks of as “the gigantic Chukor, much larger than the common partridge, found in large coveys on the edge of the snow; ... one plucked and drawn weighed 5 lbs.”; described by Vigne as “a partridge as large as a hen-turkey”; the original perhaps of that partridge “larger than a vulture” which formed one of the presents from an Indian King to Augustus Caesar. [With reference to the large Tibetan partridge found in the Nan-shan Mountains in the meridian of Sha-chau by Prjevalsky, M. E. D. Morgan in a note (_P. R. Geog. S._ ix. 1887, p. 219), writes: “_Megaloperdrix thibetanus_. Its general name in Asia is _ullar_, a word of Kirghiz or Turkish origin; the Mongols call it _hailik_, and the Tibetans _kung-mo_. There are two other varieties of this bird found in the Himalaya and Altai Mountains, but the habits of life and call-note of all three are the same.”] From the extensive diffusion of the term, which seems to be common to India, Tibet, and Persia (for the latter, see _Abbott_ in _J. R. G. S._ XXV. 41), it is likely enough to be of Mongol origin, not improbably _Tsokhor_, “dappled or pied.” (_Kovalevsky_, No. 2196, and _Strahlenberg’s_ Vocabulary; see also _Ladak_, 205; _Moorcr._ I. 313, 432; _Jerdan’s Birds of India_, III. 549, 572; _Dunlop, Hunting in Himalaya_, 178; _J. A. S. B._ VI. 774.) The chakór is mentioned by Baber (p. 282); and also by the Hindi poet Chand (_Rás Mála_, I. 230, and _Ind. Antiquary_, I. 273). If the latter passage is genuine, it is adverse to my Mongol etymology, as Chand lived before the Mongol era. The keeping of partridges for the table is alluded to by Chaucer in his portrait of the Franklin, _Prologue, Cant. Tales_: “It snewed in his hous of mete and drinke, Of alle deyntees that men coud of thinke, After the sondry sesons of the yere, So changed he his mete and his soupere. _Full many a fat partrich hadde he in mewe_, And many a breme and many a luce in stewe.”