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MOTES ON TWO; COLEBC ELON S, OF BlL RDS 
FROM Sis TAN: 
By i. (C. STUART BAKERY P.L.S%,) FZ:S3 BOs CP ALOU. 
In the years 1903-05 a small collection of birds numbering 
106 specimens was made by Mr. J. W. N. Cumming and other mem- 
bers of the Seistan Arbitration Commission and has been described 
by him in Journ. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. XVI, pp. 686-699 (1905). 
Another, consisting of only 31 specimens, was obtained by Dr. 
N. Annandale and Mr. S.W. Kemp on their recent visit to Seistan. 
Both these collections belong to the Indian Museum. As it was 
throughout advisable that the specimens should be named after 
comparison with the magnificent material available in the British 
Museum, especially with that in the Hume collection, the Director 
of the Zoological Survey of India kindly sent me the birds to work 
out 
The results show that the collection of 137 specimens contain 
examples of 79 species all of which belong to the Indian avifauna 
with the exception of Sylvia mystacea and Passer moabtticus vatit. 
The geographical affinities are Indo-Palaearctic, the races of 
resident birds nearly all belonging tothe Palaearctic rather than to 
the Indian forms; for instance Corvus cornix sharpit, Corvus 
frugilegus tschusw, Coracias garrula semenowt, Falco aesalon insignts. 
On the other hand a few sub-species, apparently resident, are 
typically tropical Indian, such as Gallinula chleropus parvifrons. 
As many recent alterations in names have been made since 
Blanford’s time, owing to discoveries by ornithologists of earlier 
names having priority, etc., it has been thought advisable to add 
in brackets the number of the bird according to Oates and Blan- 
ford’s Avifauna. This will it is hoped facilitate recognition by 
those field workers who might otherwise be puzzled. 
The field-notes in brackets over the initials N. A. have been 
added by Dr. Annandale. 
[The birds of Seistan, as might be expected from the peculiar 
conformation of the country, are, with few noteworthy exceptions, 
either water-birds or desert-birds. As our work in Seistan was 
chiefly connected with water and occupied only a few weeks in the 
middle of winter, such observations as we made on bird-life were 
necessarily meagre and concerned only the birds of the Hamun-i- 
Helmand, for a brief account of which the Geographical Introduction 
to this volume may be consulted. Thirty-four of the seventy-nine 
races and species enumerated by Mr. Baker may be classed as 
water-birds. What struck us most in a general way about these 
birds was their enormous numbers and the apparent paucity of 
food for them, Nevertheless, both ducks and the wading-birds 
