of Southern Afghanistan and Keldt. 147 



Col. Swinlioe's list and my late collection), from Mr. Blan- 

 ford's ' Eastern Persia/ and from his own observations on the 

 coast. This catalogue, with all other notes and letters on 

 the subject, he has kindly placed at my disposal, with the 

 recommendation that I should take up the work where he 

 had left it off and compile as complete a list as possible of 

 the birds of Baluchistan. This, however, I have not ventured 

 to do. The ground covered could hardly be called a single 

 province politically or geographically. It should be re- 

 membered that Baluchistan is a vague expression of political 

 geography, unknown to the people themselves, and describes 

 no definite physical region. The western half of Baluchistan 

 has long been included in Persia, and nothing has lately been 

 added to the list of its fauna made by Mr. Blanford in 1871-2. 

 From Quetta on the south to Kandahar on the north the 

 avifauna has now been pretty well worked out; but the 

 majority of the specimens were obtained in the neighbour- 

 hood of Kandahar, which is certainly not in Baluchistan, 

 while Quetta itself is an Afghan district, though ruled by the 

 Khan of Kelat. Finally, the valleys of Baluchistan proper 

 between the west and the highlands of Kelat are as yet un- 

 explored as regards their fauna. Under these circumstances 

 I have thought it better to confine my list to the parts I 

 have myself collected in, namely, Southern Afghanistan and 

 the highlands of Kelat. 



This forms a distinct and well-defined province known 

 from time immemorial in Western India and by its own in- 

 habitants as Khurasan (land of the sun), but must not be 

 confounded with the Persian province of the same name. 

 On the east and south its limits are roughly those of the 

 date-palm, say from 3500 to 4000 feet in elevation, and are 

 marked on the east by our stations of Harnai and Mach on 

 the Quetta railway, and on the south by the villages of 

 Kozdar and Nal in about latitude 27° 40'. On the north and 

 west the limits of Khurasan are hardly so well defined, but 

 the country over which our collections have been made 

 extends to Kelat-i-Ghilzai on the N.E. and to the Helmuud 

 at Girishk on the west. Throughout this district, which 



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