Also siksak, sagsag, sicsac, zi(c)kza(c)k. [Ultimately a. Arab. zaqzāq, saqsaq (Dozy).] An Egyptian species of plover, Pluvianus ægyptius (Charadrius melanocephalus), which by its cry warns the crocodile of approaching danger; perhaps identical with the trochilus (see TROCHILUS1 1).
1844. W. D. Cooley, Larcher’s Notes Herod., II. lxviii. I. 285. The bird called sagsag, or siksak, by the Arabs, is a species of plover.
1849. Curzon, Vis. Monast. Levant, xii. 150. I was on the point of firing at his [sc. a sleeping crocodile’s] eye, when I observed that he was attended by a bird called a ziczac.
1882. Phil Robinson, Noah’s Ark, iii. Almost too lazy to keep his jaws open while the little ‘sic-sac’ plover picked his teeth.
