218 Lieut. W. W. Cordeaux on the Birds of 



XVII. — Notes on the Birds of Cashmere and the Dras District. 

 By Lieut. W. Wilfrid Cordeaux (Queen's Bays). 



In forwarding these rougli notes to 'The Ibis/ I must apolo- 

 gize for their many shortcomings, pleading, as some extenu- 

 ation, that I am only a young beginner in ornithology, and 

 thcit previous to ray visit to Cashmere, in the summer of 

 1887, I had but little acquaintance with the avifauna of the 

 country, except such information as I had been able to gather 

 from Jerdon's ' Birds of India ' and the ' Wanderings of a 

 Naturalist' by Leith- Adams. It is therefore more than 

 probable that many of my facts have already been recorded 

 by the able ornithologists who have visited these districts. 

 My journal was originally sent to my father, Mr. John 

 Cordeaux, along with a small collection of about sixty skins 

 and eggs, representing the majority of the species which are 

 mentioned by me. 



During the latter part of April to the second week in July 

 1887, I spent my leave in the valley of Cashmere and the 

 Dras district. After a rapid journey up the Jhelum valley, 

 I arrived at Baramoula, where the Jhelum leaves the valley 

 and rushes down the rocky gorge to Rampur. The road is 

 carried along the hill-side, while the river roars and thunders 

 hundreds of feet below, and you look down upon it over the 

 tree-tops and across dense thickets of flowering shrubs, 

 azaleas and rhododendrons. Far above tower the great snow- 

 peaks, dazzling white in the tropic sun ; so calm and unchang- 

 ing that I do not wonder the old Hindoos and Greeks made 

 them the home of the gods. In some places we passed 

 through masses of hawthorn, now in full bloom; and the 

 sweet scent of the may-blossom recalled thoughts of the old 

 country, and those great hawthorns, all covered with grey 

 lichen, which I had last seen in the east-coast districts of 

 Lincolnshire. 



At Rampur I took a boat for Srinagar, and in coasting 

 up the Woolar lake I noticed large flocks of Starlings [Sturnus 

 U7iicolor = S. tiitens, Hume. — J. C), together with Rooks and 

 Daws, feeding in the meadows near the lake, but did not see 



