THE IBIS. 



NEW SERIES. 



No. XVII. JANUARY 1869. 



I. — Stray Notes on Ornithology in India. 

 By Allan Hume, C.B. 



No. II. Birds' -nesting in Bareilly in the early Rains. 



" Exalted Highness, if it be pleasing to your noble tempera- 

 ment and there be leisure, several birds have laid eggs in your 

 Honoui-'s compound, and in the morning your Honour might 

 see and take them." 



So spoke my head fowler, or Meer Shikaree, last evening. By 

 caste a Karol, tall, powerful, and handsome, a better sportsman 

 or a greater liar probably does not exist. 



In season and out of season, with reason and without reason, 

 he lies, lies, lies. It is many years since he first entered my ser- 

 vice, and we have both in the course of time conceived a certain 

 fondness for each other ; but it is nearly as many years since I 

 first realized the fact that he was never to be believed, and hence 

 made a sine qua non of taking the first few nests, of every species 

 new to me, with my own hands. 



Bareilly, where I now am, the headquarters of Rohilcund, is 

 only about fifty miles south of the Himalayahs, and scarcely 

 thirty from the dense fringe of jungle, swamp and forest that, 

 under the name of the " Terai," skirts the southern slopes of the 

 mountains. 



It is late in June the rains commenced about eight days ago; 



N. S. vol. v. B 



