Swans

[mccomas]

>Dear Friends
>
>Swans are very rare or vagrants in India. Is it more likely that our
>authors would write about a ha.msa, they would refer to a relatively
>common birds, the goose, or a rare one (one of the swans)? When the texts
>mentions ham.sa, they almost certainly mean the wild goose. I think
>bar-headed goose, Anser indicus, is the best bet. See
>http://www.scz.org/animals/g/bhgoose.html
>
>The romantic European translators of the eighteenth and nineteenth
>centuries preferred 'swan' to 'goose' for their own cultural reasons.
>
>Yours
>
>McComas