BIRDS. 1 9 1 



BIRDS. 



Note.— The books consulted for this paper are Jerdon's " Birds of India," Gates' "Birds 

 of ludia," and Hume and Marshall's " Game Birds of India." 



J. Gammie— 22-8-91. 



In no part of the world of an equal area are birds more profusely- 

 represented in species than in Sikhim, where there are between 500 

 and 600. They vary in size from the gigantic lammergeyer, of about 

 4 feet in length and 9^ feet across the outstretched wings, down to 

 a tiny flower-pecker, Dicccum ignipcctus, barely exceeding 3 inches 

 from the end of its beak to the tip of its tail. There are four species 

 of kingfishers, but none are numerous in individuals; no doubt owing 

 to the scarcity of fish, their natural food. They chiefly frequent the 

 streams of the lower valleys and rarely are found above 4,000 feet. 

 The smallest, and at the same time prettiest of them all, is Ceyx 

 tridactyJa, a lovely little creature of about 5 inches in length, and 

 coloured with rufous, white, and different shades of glistening blue and 

 violet. Halcyon coromandelianns., another beautiful species, is of a nearly- 

 uniform rich rufous colour overlaid with shining jjeach. The largest 

 of all is crested, and spotted black and white. Alcedo hengalensis, 

 the fourth species, closely resembles the English kingfisher, but is 

 smaller. The other more conspicuous birds frequenting stream-sides 

 are forktails, redstarts, a dipper, and a whistling-thrush. The 

 forktails, of which there are four species, are quite characteristic of 

 the darkly wooded mountain torrents of Sikhim. There they are at 

 home on the rocks amidst the roar and the sjDray, but dash up the 

 streams, with a weird sort of screaming noise, -when sudderdy disturb- 

 ed. They are coloured black and white. In the winter season the 

 white-capped redstart, Chimarrhornis leucocephala, is a conspicuous and 

 common object of the lower stream beds, but goes high up to breed. 

 It is chastely clad in a black coat and vest and a snow-white cap, and is 

 rufous below. The dipper is of a uniform brown colom-, and has the 

 remarkable power of walking under the water where it finds its prin- 

 cipal food. The whistling-thrush is a large handsome yellow-billed 

 bird, over a foot long and of a black colour overlaid with glistenino- 

 cobalt-blue. It is, perhaps, the most fi-equently noticed of the birds 

 frequenting the stream-sides between 3,000 and 8,000 feet elevation. 



Of woodpeckers there are about a dozen species. These readily 

 attract attention by their showy colours and the habit, which their 

 race have, of climbing on trees and tapping the stems in search of the 

 larvae of beetles, their favourite food. The species found in Sikhim 



