OR INDIAN BUCEROS. 131 



yet we are obliged to Lieut. White for a complete 

 description of so extraordinary a bird, and for our 

 knowledge of the singular facts which he first made 

 public. The holloiv protuberance at the base of the 

 upper mandible, has been supposed, with reason, by 

 Count Gika, to serve as a receptacle for nourish- 

 ment ; and the natives, I find, consider it as a natural 

 cistern to supply the bird with water in the dry season, 

 and on its long excursions ; whence the name of 

 Dhanesa, or Lord of Wealthy may possibly have been 

 given to it. The Count had been informed that it 

 was no other than the Garuda of Indian Mythologists; 

 but the Pandits unanimously assure me, that, by the 

 word Garuda, they mean in common discourse the 

 Gridhra, or King of Vultures; and they have a curi- 

 ous legend of a young Garuda, or Eagle, who burned 

 his wings by soaring too near the sun, on which he had 

 fixed his eyes. The bird of Vishnu is in fact wholly 

 mythological ; and I have seen it painted in the form 

 of a hoy with an Eagle's plumage. As to the Cuchilu 

 (for so is the word written and correctly pronounced) 

 it is, no doubt, the Strychnos Ntix vomica or Coin- 

 hrina, for they are now thought specifically the same. 

 The leaves and fruit of both the varieties were brougl t 

 to me bv a Brahmen as those of the Cuchila, and he re- 

 peated a Sanscrit verse, in which it was called Vana- 

 mja, cr King of the Forest : but, according to an ap- 

 proved comment on the Amaracbsh, it has four other 

 nam ::, amongst which Culaca is the smoothest; so that 

 first true species of this ^enusmaybe namedSTRv* 

 c u n o s Culaca, and the :id S t r y c h s s Gataca\ 



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