110 Hall, The Jungle and the Snows. [isf'"oct. 



The Bulbuls have their home principally in the Oriental region, 

 from where they extend to Japan, Malaj^ Peninsula, and through- 

 out Africa. I was rather disappointed in the song of the three 

 species I met, considering it was their season. One I found near 

 Solon building its nest, and it certainly should have had some 

 time for special effort. The poets' Bulbul is probably Daulias 

 hafizi, which is intermediate between the English Nightingale 

 {D. luscinia) and the Eastern form {D. philoniela). 



The mimic of the jungle is the lora — now here, now there, making 

 it difficult to locate the owner. At a village tank, to which the 

 carnivores and others came to drink, I saw the widespread Green- 

 shank [Totamis), the northern Lapwing {Vanellus), and a sage old 

 Adjutant {Leptoptilus). Later on I saw the Jabiru [Xenorhynchus). 

 Along a nala three species of Kingfishers {Halcyon) were seen, 

 keeping up the family reputation for bright and many colours. 



Here also I saw a fine species in the Fishing Owl {Ketiipa), 

 following its avocation. It was a great bird, making a silent 

 flight from a mango tree to the water's edge. In the nala there 

 were plenty of mahseer and murrell ; there was also a stalk-eyed 

 crab, forming a part of its food. This camp, where few English- 

 men ever get, was most fascinating. It was on a flat in the bend 

 of a gently running stream. 



As with most Owls, the head would move quickly in 

 different directions as we attracted its attention. The eye disc 

 had stiff shafts to its feathers when compared with the limp- 

 shafted contour plumage, giving the quiet flight to nocturnal 

 birds. Judging by the association of parti-coloured birds, it 

 seems possible we had in the jungle the two-coloured if not the 

 trichromatic phases of certain of these Owls, rust-red as well as 

 grey. The smallest known Owl is five inches in length, and what 

 I saw I took to be the Pigmy Owl {Glaucidium), very little longer. 

 Hume records it as capturing birds very little larger than itself. 

 Its flight is certainly rapid, though very jerky. The Snowy Owl 

 {Nyctea scandiaca) winters as far south as the Indus valley, and a 

 bird even more charming than our White Goshawk. I met it 

 in 1903 in its summer plumage in the tundras adjacent to 

 Yakutsk. The second and less numerous Crow in this district 

 (Saugar) is the Hill Crow. On the more open country I saw a 

 number of Sand Grouse (Pterocles), the species not being identified. 

 In the northern Punjab I saw a Tibetan Sand Grouse closely 

 related to the Pallas species which migrated in 1888 from Lake 

 Baikal, in Siberia, to England, and in vast numbers. I saw it 

 on the Angara, which flows into Baikal, in 1903. The most sensitive 

 of game birds, the Pea Fowl [Pavo), was plentiful. The natives 

 having no objection, and it being an unprotected bird, we secured 

 some of the males for food. It is an experience to wait quietly in 

 the jungle while the beaters drive a flock towards one lying in 

 position, and to see them racing hard to get away from the natives 

 making a disturbance to encourage them to go in a given direction 

 for inspection. There is a species of Anthus that goes about in a 



