Chapter CUSTOM to CYRUS of C by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

CUTTRY. See KHUTTRY.

CYRUS, SYRAS, SARUS, &c. A common corruption of Hind. saras, [Skt. sarasa, the ‘lake bird,’] or (corruptly) sarhans, the name of the great gray crane, Grus Antigone, L., generally found in pairs, held almost sacred in some parts of India, and whose “fine trumpet-like call, uttered when alarmed or on the wing, can be heard a couple of miles off” (Jerdon). [The British soldier calls the bird a “Serious,” and is fond of shooting him for the pot.]

1672.—“…peculiarly Brand-geese, Colum [see COOLUNG], and Serass, a species of the former.”—Fryer, 117.

1807.—“The argeelah as well as the cyrus, and all the aquatic tribe are extremely fond of snakes, which they…swallow down their long throats with great despatch.”—Williamson, Or. Field Sports, 27.

[1809.—“Saros.” See under COOLUNG.]

1813.—In Forbes’s Or. Mem. (ii. 277 seqq.; [2nd edition i. 502 seqq.]), there is a curious story of a Cyrus or Sahras (as he writes it) which Forbes had tamed in India, and which nine years afterwards recognised its master when he visited General Conway’s menagerie at Park Place near Henley.

1840.—“Bands of gobbling pelicans” (see this word, probably ADJUTANTS are meant) “and groups of tall cyruses in their half-Quaker, half-lancer plumage, consulted and conferred together, in seeming perplexity as to the nature of our intentions.”—Mrs. Mackenzie, Storms and Sunshine of a Soldier’s Life, i. 108.