104 BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 



all. It is very warm here at midday, the rocks being quite bare and 

 the valley narrow and steep ; but after sunset an icy wind comes 

 sweeping down from the snows above, and there is a continual rattle 

 of stones. They fly in regular volleys, leaping 100 feet at a time, 

 kicking up a cloud of dust and crashing like a battle. Many animals 

 are killed thus, and occasionally men too. Hence the choice of a 

 camping-ground is a matter requiring deliberation, and it is always 

 safer to avoid the river-side and get up on a ridge, even though 

 water may have to be brought up. I saw to-day, at 9,000 feet, the 

 first pair of blackbirds — there was no mistaking the dear old "ouzel 

 cock with tawny bill, " and they seemed to be preparing to nest 

 hereabouts. 



I did not think of shooting them ; but I find from Jerdon, Vol. I., 

 p. 527, that if I had done so it would have settled a doubtful point 

 of ornithology. One has to put aside zoological researches that 

 require shooting, if one wants any game to remain in the nullah. 

 Another old friend I met on the way up, was a wild raspberry bush 

 just coming into leaf. I also caught a black lizard, red speckled 

 beneath, and he is now "spirited away" with sundry snakes for a 



friend. 



April 18th. — Cloudy morning; started up hill to explore new 

 ground ; rain came on, but we persevered. Saw a pretty white- 

 headed red-start (B. hodgsoni), and watched the little dippers 

 (Hydrobata sordida). (I at other times saw H. asiatica and H. 

 cashmiriensis plunging into the turbid swift flowing torrent, and 

 timed their dives, the longest being 43 seconds). The red-start kept 

 on spreading out his tail (like a fantail flycatcher), and making darts 

 at flies on the face of a rock. While climbing some rocks at 10,000 

 feet an old hen ram chikore flew up clucking from a ledge of rock 

 about ten yards above me. " Eggs," thought I, and scrambled up 

 to the place, and there was the nest, about a foot in diameter, in a 

 sheltered little crevice, a few twigs as a foundation for a thick layer 

 of her own grey feathers ; and sis. eggs, very like capercailzie eggs, 

 but larger. Nibra told me that they lay 18 or 20 eggs, but as these 

 eggs were hard set and very trouble: ome to blow, that old bird had 

 laid all her eggs clearly, and unless hens club together occasionally 

 (as I think weaver birds and munias must sometimes do, and sonic 

 of the phasianidce), I fear Monsieur Nibra was telling one of his not 

 infrequent " corkers." Well, allowing 12 days' incubation, and six 

 days for laying the six eggs, this snow-hen must have had her 



