Actually I thought they were what happened to dragon's eggs when their nests weren't lined with human hair... Because it said he forgot that dragons lined their nests with human hair, and if it were a bird from another land that comment wouldn't make sense to me. He called it Ak-baba because it resembled a bird his servants described to him but the ones he had got bigger or something.
Plus Marc's illustration showed a dragon in the egg.
Or I could be wrong. xD Mrph. I'll go read the book again.

Stonefire