52 EEMAEKS ox DR. STOLICZKA'S " OEMTUOLOGICAL [18G9. 



18G9. 



Ibis, 18C9, Jie)nfir/is on Dr. Stoliczka's " Ornithological Observations in the Sutlej Valley." By AimiUR, 

 ^- ^'"^- Viscount Walden, P.Z.S. &c. [From ' The Ibis,' 1869.] 



l.\ the ' Jouiual of the Asiatic Society of Bengal' for 18G8, a paper has been published, entitled 

 " Omitholof^ical Observations in the Sutlej Valley, N.W. Himalayas," which deserves the attention 

 and the study of the philosophical ornithologist. The author. Dr. Stoliczka, is a gentleman 

 whose name is well known as that of a distinguished palaeontologist and geologist. And this, 

 I believe, his first ornithological contribution possesses merits more than sufficient to entitle him 

 to a hi"h place among scientific ornithologists. The accession to our ranks of a recruit already 

 so eminent in other branches of the natural sciences will be hailed with pleasure, and, by thobe 

 who aim at higher objects than the mere priority of naming their species, with gratitude. The 

 addition of another labourer in the but partially tilled field of Asiatic zoology will be welcome 

 to the few, though happily increasing, workers in that much-neglected region of the earth's 

 surface ; while a perusal of Ur. Stoliczka's paper will show that it is possible for a naturalist 

 primarily and chiefly occupied with a widely difieriug branch of research, to combine a 

 record of practical zoological observations made in the field with an almost rigid accuracy of 

 nomenclature. 



An account of the collections made by Dr. Stoliczka, of which a translation appeared iu this 

 Journal for July last*, will already have enabled its readers to estimate his activity in the good 

 cause. The collection there noticed was a general one of birds obtained in Tibet as well as in 

 the Himalayas. The list I now propose noticing is confined to the species which inhabit a 

 Ibis, 18C0, limited region of those mountains, the Sutlej Valley, and is therefore more local iu its 

 p. 209. character. The species were collected or observed during the summer months, from May to 

 October; while the authority for the winter residence of many of them rests chiefly on the 

 evidence of the specimens obtained by shikarees employed to collect during the winter. 



One hundred and thirty-nine genera, belonging to the Insessores, are enumerated as being 

 represented in the Sutlej Valley. Of the remaining eighty-nine genera, after deducting fifty which 

 are common to the temperate regions of the Old World and to the plains of Continental India (such 

 as Ilirundo, Coracias, Merops, Picus, Corvus, Sitta, Lanius, and so forth), forty-one of the genera 

 (like Palaornis, Pyctorhis, Tchitrea,Megala:ma,Arachnechthra,Cops}ichus, Thainnohia, Dendrocitta, 

 Zosterops, and others) are strictly characteristic of the plains of India with their lower elevations. 

 Seventeen genera are common to the mountains and elevated tablelands of the Himalayas, to 

 Europe, to Central, and probably Northern, Asia — Certhia, Cinclus, and Tichvdroma, for instance; 

 seven are Himalayan genera, including, in all likelihood, Central-Asiatic species, Ilemichelidon, 

 Propasser, and a few more ; and twenty-four are genera peculiar, within the Indian region, to 

 the slopes, valleys, and jungles of the Himalayas. In the Central and Eastern Himalayan regions 

 special genera, containing numerous species, abound ; while in the north-western Himalayas these 

 characteristic genera and specific forms rapidly diminish, and probably cease altogether before 

 the eastern bank of the Indus is reached. 



• Ibis, 18G8, pp. 302-321. 



