On the Birds of Southern Afghanistan. 95 



The list of birds in the foregoing remarks is not intended to 

 be in any way complete : they merely refer to some species 

 which are interesting to the ornithologist and sportsman, and 

 in the pursuit and observation of which I spent many happy 

 days during a long sojourn in the Dacca and neighbouring 

 districts. 



VIII. — On the Birds of Southern Afghanistan. By Lieut. -Col. 

 C. SwiNHOE, F.L.S., F.Z.S., M.B.O.U. 



The following notes refer to the birds which I collected, and 

 to some which I observed but failed to get specimens of 

 during the few months I Avas in South Afghanistan. 



I reached Kandahar on the 6th October, 1880; but the 

 siege of Kandahar, the death of my predecessor from wounds 

 received at the battle of Dekoja, and the movements of the 

 large bodies of troops taking place at the time gave me, as 

 chief administrative commissariat officer in the field, such very 

 heavy work that I could not find time either to collect birds or 

 to take notes, until matters settled down a little. All I profess 

 therefore, to do in this paper is to give a list of the birds 

 collected, which Dr. Scully has very kindly assisted me in 

 identifying and working out, and of those observed at Kan- 

 dahar from December 1880 until the middle of April 1881, 

 and. during the march to India, which I reached at the end 

 of May following — with the addition of a few shot by Dr. 

 Duke in North Beloochistan and by Col. St. John in the 

 neighbourhood of Kandahar. The distance from Sibi to 

 Kandahar may be roughly calculated at about 250 miles. 

 Our direct line of communications starts from Pirchowky, 

 which is the terminus of the railway and is at the mouth of 

 the Bolan Pass, 20 miles from Sibi, through the Bolan to 

 Quetta (80 miles), passing the military posts of Koondalain, 

 South Kirta, North Kirta, Bibi Nani, Mach, Dozan, Dur- 

 waza, and Siriab, then from Quetta through the Pisheen 

 valley to the Kojak Pass, passing Metazai, Dinakarez, Saiji, 

 Goolistan, and Killa Abdula, then down the Kojak into the 



