Birds of Kohat and Kurram. 97 



Where water is easily brought on to the Land, as is the 

 case in the plains around Kohat and Lachi and in the 

 Kurram, Hangu, and Teri Valleys, green oases of cultivation 

 relieve the general barrenness. A feature of the cultivation 

 around Kohat and in the Miranzai Valley consists of the 

 beautiful orchards of Mulberry, Peach, Plum, Fig, and Vine 

 which abound, and are supplemented, in the stonier parts, 

 by groves of wild Olive-trees. The crops consist mainly of 

 Avheat ; but Indian corn, barley, millet, cotton, and sugar- 

 cane are also grown, and around Bangu, Thall, and in the 

 Kurram Valley, rice. Immediately south of the station of 

 Kohat the Gov'crnment grass-farm, of about 300 acres, 

 possesses many attractions for birds on migration, and, after 

 irrigation, is not a bad place to observe Waders : even Duck 

 and Snipe have been shot on it. The climate is very dry. 

 As regards temperature : in the plains of Kohat the winter 

 might be compared to that of the south of France, but the 

 summer is decidedly hotter and probably most nearly 

 approximates to that of Egypt. In the Kurram Valley 

 temperatures are much lower, and the climate of Upper 

 Kurram must be somewhat similar, both in summer and in 

 winter, to that of Northern Germany. 



Ornithologically speaking, this corner of the Palsearctic 

 Region * has hitherto been little worked. With the exception 



* Dresser in the preface to his ' Manual of Patearctic Birds ' does not 

 clearly define the Paleearctic boundary in this locality, and by omitting 

 all reference to the plains of India would seem to imply that Kohat 

 belongs to the Indian Subregion. On the other hand, Blanford in his 

 ' Distribution of Vertebrate Animals in India ' assigns the plains of the 

 PuQJab to the Palfearctic Region. Professor Newton, however, in his 

 article on "Birds" in the 'Encyclopaedia Britannica,' remarks that if 

 Baluchistan is to be excluded from the Palaearctic Region, " then the line 

 of demarcation must run inland and so continue between that land 

 and Afghanistan till ascending the right bank of the Indus it turns the 

 shoulder of the Great Snowy range." The italics are mine, and I take 

 this to mean that the line of demarcation strikes the Indus at a point 

 in prolongation eastward of the boundary-line between Afghanistan and 

 Baluchistan, i. e. somewhere in the vicinity of Dera Ghazi Khan. If tliis 

 is the correct interpretation of Newton's views then the ornithology of 

 N.W. India strongly supports them. 



SER. IX. VOL. III. 11 



