ROC  , or more correctly Ruxa, a fabulous

bird of enormous size which carries off elephants to feed its young . The legend of the roc, familiar to every one from the Arabian Nights, was widely spread in the East; and in later times the home of the, monster was sought in the direction of Madagascar, whence gigantic fronds of the Raphia palm very like a quill in form appear to have been brought under the name of roc's feathers (see, Yule's Marco Polo, bk. iii. ch . 33, and Academy, 1884, No . 62o) . Such a feather was brought to the Great Khan, and we read also of a gigantic stump of a roc's quill being' brought to Spain by a merchant from the China seas (Abu IJamid of Spain, in Damiri, s.v.) . The roc is hardly different from the Arabian `anka (see PHOENIX); it is also identified with the Persian simurgh, the bird which figures in Firdausi's epic as the foster-father of the hero Zal, father of Rustam . When we go farther back into Persian antiquity we find an immortal bird, amru, or (in the Minoi-khiradh) sinamris, which shakes the ripe fruit from the mythical tree that bears the seed of all useful things . Sinamru and simurgh seem to be the same word . In Indian legend the garutla on which Vishnu rides is the king of birds (Benfey, Pantschatantra, 98) . In the Pahlavi translation of the Indian story as represented by the Syrian Kalilag and Damnag (ed . Bickell, 1876), the simurgh takes the place of the garucla, while Ibn al-Mokaffa' (Calila et Dimna, ed . De Sacy, p .

126) speaks instead of the `anka . The later

Syriac, curiously enough, has behmoth, apparently the behemoth of Job transformed into a bird . For a collection of legends about the roc, see Lane's Arabian Nights, chap. xx. notes 22, 62, and Yule, ut supra . Also see Bochart, Hieroz, bk. vi. ch. xiv . ; Damiri, i . 414, ii . 177 seq . ; Kazwini, i . AI9 seq . ; Ibn Batuta, iv . 305 seq . ; Spiegel, Eran .

Altertumsk. ii . I18 .