SARCIPTORNIS MELANOTA 33 



In Cachar it is very rare, but 1 have seen it there, and in Sylhet, 

 and again have had notice of its occurrence sent me from the North 

 Looshai Hills. As regards the Sunderbands, Jessore was the district 

 in which I first made the acquaintance of this species — a distant 

 acquaintance only, it is true ; but in the next district (Khoolna) we 

 came into closer contact with one another. Here a pair of Xukhtas 

 formed a part of a bag of 140 couple of Duck and Teal got by my 

 father, Mr. T. Wilcox, and myself, in the Moolna bhil, a vast extent 

 of swamp and water, covering fully twenty square miles of the 

 country. This was in the cold weather, the end of January, 1883. 

 In Cachar, Sylhet. and Looshai, the birds remain all the year round 

 and breed, as they do in most other parts of their habitat; but in 

 the Sunderbands I should think they are very probably migrants, 

 though I have no evidence on this point. 



In Burma, Oates reports them as common in Pegu, Hopwood 

 records them as common in Aracan, and Harington also met with 

 them in several districts. It is almost certain that they have been, 

 or will be, recorded throughout that province, extending through the 

 Indo-Burmese countries. 



Out of India their habitat may be described roughly as Africa 

 south of the Sahara, and they are also found in Madagascar, though 

 they do not seem particularly common there. Hume says that they 

 do not ascend the hills, but in North Cachar and in Looshai they are, 

 at all events, found up to about 2,000 feet, if not considerably higher. 

 Mr. C. G. Scott, an engineer on the Assam-Bengal railway, told me 

 that once late in April one of these birds flew quite close to him 

 as he was walking down one of the cuttings at an elevation close 

 on 2,000 feet, and the bird, a drake, was then flying steadily up the 

 valley. I have seen Nukhtas myself, a pair of them, in the Mahor 

 Valley at heights ranging between 1,500 and 2,000 feet, and I once 

 heard their hoarse cry in the Jiri Valley at least as high as the latter 

 elevation. I know for a certainty that they breed up to at least 

 2,000 feet, and I am almost sure that a pair had their nest in the 

 Mahor Valley even higher up than this. I was out after Sambhur 

 at the time they were first seen, and in the centre of some heavy 

 tree-forest I came across a collection of small grassy swamps, 

 varying from some one to two hundred yards in diameter. All round 

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