1922.] the Bints of Si int. (529 



Saxicola torquata leucura (Blyth). 



Hnine foiiiul tlie AVhite-tailed Stonecliat abundant, but 

 local, in the jheels of Ui)per Sind ; lie writes : " Where the 

 water, as it were, was paved with the leaves of the lotus and 

 'singhara' {Trapa Jnspinosci) and dotted over with tiny clumps 

 or single stems of reeds and flowering grasses, the White- 

 tailed Chat might be seen perched sideways on one of these 

 wind-swayed reeds, every now and then darting down on to 

 one of the lotus leaves, seizing some insect there and return- 

 ing to its previous perch, instantly recognizable when on the 

 wing by the great amount of white in the tail. Outside 

 high-water mark I never saw a single specimen." Brooks 

 came across this bird near Sukkur near a backwater of the 

 Indus, where blue vetches and small tamarisks were growing. 



In my experience too, this Chat is not found in Lower 

 Sind nor did I, nor Doig, nor Butler find it in the eastern 

 Narra district, though the locality seemed suitable. I only 

 came across it once and that on the Manchar Lake on 

 9 March, where I obtained a male, with organs onlaroed to 

 breeding size, in the drying reeds and sedges on the lake- 

 side ; the female was probably sitting. To Mr. Bell, how- 

 ever, belongs the honour of first describing the breeding of 

 this bird in India, and I must here acknowledge once more 

 the debt of gratitude I owe him for so kindly handing over 

 to me his nesting notes to incorporate in this paper. Mr. 

 Bell says that at the end of April 1904 he had seen several 

 pairs in the Keti Shah Forest near Sukkur (almost where 

 Brooks found it), and on revisiting the place at the end of 

 March 1906 he again found many pairs. They affect the 

 inundated land only, that is to say, open ground in the 

 immediate vicinity of backwaters of the Indus on which 

 later vetches are grown and on which tusssocks of grass and 

 low tamarisks flourish. In such a place on 28 March he saw 

 a pair and marked the female to the nest, which was situated 

 under a little heap of dead tamarisk twigs left after clearing 

 the field for sowing. The nest was placed in a depression, 

 well hidden and made of dead tamarisk leaves lined with a 

 few (lead grasses :ind three or four Black Partridge feathers, 



