danger.

3. The _Bargat_, fig-tree, is the _Ficus Bengalensis_ of Linnaeus.

4. Muniya sends her hero for a _Garpank's_ feather; _Garpank_ I can
find in no dictionary, but have ventured to translate it by eagle, as
she says it is like a kite, only very much bigger; she sent us to see
a statue of a garpank that stood over a gateway in a street in
Calcutta, which might be that of an eagle or of a huge hawk. She said
such birds did not exist in Bengal, and that it was not the Garu[d.]a
(the sovran of the feathered race and vehicle of Vish[n.]u, Benfey).
Gubernatis, in the 2nd volume of his _Zoological Mythology_, p. 189,
tells a story from Monferrat where a king is blind, and can only be
cured by "bathing his eyes in oil with a feather" of a griffin that
lives on a high mountain. His third and youngest son catches and
brings him one of the griffins and the king regains his sight.

5. Winning the gratitude of a bird by killing the snake or dragon that
year after year devours its young birds is such a common incident in
fairy tales, that I will only mention two instances. One occurs in a
Dinajpur tale published by Mr. G. H. Damant in the _Indian Antiquary_
for 5th April, 1872, p. 145, where the hero saves the young birds from
the snake. They tell the old birds. He lies under the tree and listens
to the old birds relating how he will find the tree with the silver
stem and golden branches he has come to seek. The other occurs at pp.
119, 110, of a story collected by Vogl (_Volksmaerchen_ [Slavonic], p.
79) called Schoen-Jela. In this tale the hero is sheltered in the
dreadful underground wilderness by a hermit. Here there is the
gigantic bird, Einja, who every third year has a brood of four young
birds which a dragon as regularly devours. The hero, Prince Milan,
watches by the nest for the dragon and kills him. The young birds,
overjoyed, fly out of the nest and cover the hero with their wings
till the old bird on her return asks who has saved them. Then they
unfold their wings and she sees Prince Milan. In return she carries
him to the upper world.

6. The word translated "night-growing rice" is Rat-vasha-ke-dhan; and
the ayah's description of this rice is given in the story. In this
description she spoke of it as chawal, the common word for uncooked
rice, and said the Rakshas wished to drink its kanji-pani
(rice-water). As it is a fairy plant I am afraid it is hopeless trying
to find its botanical name. Unluckily, Dr. G