Birds of Kohat and Kurram. 233 



of them becomes quite appreciable and rather offensive. 

 Gardens, hedges, and trees are disgustingly soiled by the 

 rain of their excreta. Shooting the birds is encouraged in 

 Cantonments at this time, and every sepoy who can procure 

 a gun slaughters to his heart's content. But not with- 

 standing these drastic measures little mitigation of the 

 nuisance is effected." 



The spring migration sets in about the second week in 

 March and continues till the middle of May, the return 

 passage commencing early in August and continuing till 

 October, but comparatively few examples are seen in autumn. 

 A few stay for the winter, being fairly common then in the 

 reed-beds and scrub round Lachi, None appear to breed in 

 the Kurram Valley, but a large number pass through. 



An example picked up by Major Magrath near Peiwar 

 (6500 feet) had evidently been strangled by getting its head 

 inextricably fixed between the primaries when preening 

 itself. 



[779.] Passer montanus. The Tree-Sparrow. 



Rattray, J. B. N. H. S. xii. p. 340 (nests freely: Upper 

 Kurram) ; Marshall, op. cit. xiv. p. 604 (a very common 

 resident : Quetta) ; Fulton, op. cit. xvi. p. 54 (a common 

 resident : Chitral) ; Gumming, t. c. p. 688 (abundant in 

 April : Seistau) ; Ward, op. cit. xvii. p. 485. 



714. S ad. Kohat, ] 850 ft., 20th March. 



Common in winter in the Miranzai Valley, a few individuals 

 occurring as low as Kohat and Banda. Mr. Donald found a 

 nest with young in Doaba Station (3000 feet) in May and 

 says that the bird nests regularly at Shinauri (3800 feet). It 

 possibly also does so at Thall (2550 feet), where I observed a 

 solitary example on the 18th of May. In the Upper Kurram 

 this species and P. domesticus are present in about equal 

 numbers in summer, and build alongside one another in 

 houses ; but the former, as noted by Capt. Fulton in his paper 

 on " The Birds of Chitral," get the pick of the nesting-sites 

 before the latter's arrival, and in many cases P. domesticus 

 has to put up with holes in cliffs. 



