98 Major H. A. F. Magratli on the 



of the two papers by Colonel R. H. Rattray published in the 

 ' Journal ' of the Bombay Natural History Society, " Notes 

 on Nests taken from March to June at Kohat and Mussoorie, 

 North-Western Provinces'-' (vol. x. p. 628), and ''Birds 

 Collected and Observed at ThalP' (vol. xii. p. 337), 

 and a few observations by Major Wardlaw-Ramsay and 

 others mentioned in the ' Fauna of British India,' I 

 know of no contribution to its ornithology *. Neither 

 Hume nor Jerdon, Oates nor Blanford, nor others of India's 

 many excellent ornithologists, appear to have visited it. And 

 yet it is an important locality, lying as it does in the extreme 

 north-west of the Peninsula on one of the great migration- 

 highways into India, and at a point on that highway where 

 it converges to its narrowest limits. The pre-eminently 

 Palsearctic character of the avifauna is most striking. 

 Especially is this noticeable in the forms breeding in the 

 ITpper Kurram, very few of the many subtropical species 

 inhabiting the Western Himalayas being found there. From 

 the description of the country and from its geographical 

 position the predominance of such groups as the Accipitrines, 

 Motacillidse, Fringillinae, Emberizinte, and of the desert- 

 forms will not be considered surprising. Although un- 

 doubtedly well represented on migration, the Ducks, Waders, 

 and Shore-birds are difficult of observation in Kohat. With 

 the exception of the grass-farm, the tank at Dhand-Idl-Khel, 

 and some marshy tracts round Thall and Lachi, this District 

 is singularly devoid of the moist places beloved of Wild- 

 fowl and Waders, no streams of any size flowing through 

 it. Matters improve in this respect on arriving at the 

 Kurram Valley. The river here being taken oflF for rice- 

 cultivatiou in places along its banks, marshy spots have 

 formed, and in the months of March and April, September 

 and October, numbers of W"ild-fowl and Waders, using this 



* There is only one allusion to Kohat itself in the ' Fauna of British 

 India,' and that is in connection with the occurrence there of the Red- 

 wing {Turdus iliacus), recorded hj Jerdou on hearsa^^ from Blyth, on 

 hearsay from Trotter. After more than two years' careful ohser\ation 

 we failed to come across this bird, and I think we may safely say that^it 

 is not "a re,'rular winter visitant," if it occurs at all. 



