Word: birde
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Nara-period lacquer of the demigod Karura, one of the legendary protectors of Shakamuni Buddha. His unknown craftsman visualized him as looking a good deal like an ancient warrior, with stern glance, hanging jowls and a suit of mail-but distinguished from ordinary mortals by a belligerently bird-like beak...
...beak? Modern Japanese are not sure. One opinion is that Karura is patterned after the Indian bird-god. Garuda, who used to thrive on serpents. Another version: Karura broke some of Buddha's precepts and got his face altered in punishment. The 420,000 Japanese who trooped past him were hardly bothered by historical uncertainties; Karura, in all his fierce, proud finery, was simply a pleasure to look...
Flock Together. In Fort Lauderdale, Fla., cocktail lounge boss H. Greet sued the Miami Rare Bird Farm for $75,000 after 1) two parakeets he bought from the aviary "for Oriental atmosphere" died of parrot fever, 2) the county health department ordered his remaining 25 exotic birds destroyed, 3) his saloon was quarantined for five days...
...cries the hawksman as he sends his bird aloft. Some such command rang through the woodlands of Assyria 3,000 years ago, and carried down the Middle Ages. Every king had his eagles, every earl his peregrines, and even a knave might fly a kestrel. They brought pigeon and duck to the table, and sport to the afternoon...
Rage In a Mangold Eye. All that White knew about hawks to begin with, he had learned from three tracts on the subject and from an exchange of letters with two of the few remaining hawk-masters left in Europe. The bird was Gos, an untamed tiercel (male) of the largest European species of the short-winged hawks, only three inches smaller than a golden eagle. The scene of their encounter was a clearing in a Buckinghamshire wood, where White lived alone in a cottage...