GANGETIC HINDOOSTAN. I55 



When I fpeak of the Zoology oi t\\Q Woods, I muft confine Birds. 

 myfelf to the feathered tribe of the aquatic kind. All thofe of 

 Bengal may be found here, probably at all times, but mod cer- 

 tainly in the dry feafon, when the woods and perpetual moif- 

 ture of the fwamps muft make them a defirable retreat, either 

 for the fake of food, or of laying their eggs, and bringing up 

 their young. 



During the parching heats moft other parts of Bengal, in- Water Fowl, 

 deed of India itfelf, becomes uninhabitable to birds of the divi- 

 iion of water fowl. The wet tradls about Surat may alfo be the 

 retreat of thofe of the weftern parts of India, and poffibly even 

 thofe of the remote Caticafan or E;;^o^(^/ chains. Do6lor Fryer, 

 p. 119, and p. 317, mentions 5/-^«?geefe ; Br, Zool. ii. N° 270, and 

 birds which he calls Colum and Serafs\ thefe are both of the crane 

 kind : the Colum, he fays, is of a grey color, with body as large 

 as a turky, and with long legs and neck. The Serafs, he fays, 

 is of the fame fpecies, and that both are remarkable for a du- 

 plicature of the wind-pipe in form of a French horn ; the du- 

 plicature is double in the Colum and fingle in the Serafs-, one of 

 them may be our common crane. He tells us that they come 

 in mighty flights from Mount Caucafus at the approach of the 

 cold, announcing their approach by very loud notes long before 

 they are feen. Doctor Parfons, in Ph. Tranf. vol. Ivi. p. 21 r, has 

 a juft idea of the genus of thefe birds, which he mentions from 

 the fame authority as I do : they may be of fome of the fpe- 

 cies of cranes 1 mention a little farther on. My friend Mr. 

 Latham departs from his ufual judgment, when he fuppofes, 

 vol. ii. p. 434, that the Colum is our wild fwan ; but then he 



X 1 gives 



