280 BIRDS NESTING ON THE EASTERN NARRA. 



" went for" these birds, and again sent specimens of birds and 

 eggs to Mr. Hume, who informed me that the birds now sent 

 were H. rama, and that the eggs must belong to this species. 

 Soon after this Mr. Brooks saw the eggs with Mr. Hume, and 

 identified them as being H. Tama's eggs, and identical to eggs 

 he saw at home collected by, I think, Mr. Seebohm, of this 

 species, in Siberia. Only fancy, a bird breeding on the Narra, 

 of all places, especially in May, June, and July, in preference 

 to Siberia ! Locally they are very numerous, as I collected up- 

 wards of 90 to 100 eggs in one field, about eight acres in size. 

 They build in stunted tainai-isk bushes, or rather in bushes of 

 this kind which originally were cut down to admit of cultiva- 

 tion being carried on, and which afterwards had again sprouted. 

 These bushes are very dense, and in their centre is situated the 

 nest composed of sedge, with a lining of fine grass, mixed some- 

 times with a little soft grass reeds. The eggs are, as a rule, 

 four in number, are of a dull white ground colour, with brown 

 spots, the large end having, as a rule, a ring round it of most 

 delicate, fine, hair-like brown lines, something similar to the 

 tracing to be seen on the eggs of " Drymoeca inornata." The 

 egg in size is also similar to this species.* 



583 fe— Sylvia nana, Eemp. and Ehr. 



On the 13th November, while visiting the "Allah" Bund in 

 the Runn of Kutch, 1 found the young of this species just able 

 to fly. They, with C. desertorum and a few da.vicola deserti, 

 were the only birds to be seen in this desolate region. 



709.— Passer pyrrhonotus, My. 



Forty years is a long period for one and the same bird not to 

 have been met with in India. However, at the time I met 

 with it, viz. in August, Sind, as a rule, is not visited by orni- 

 thologists for pleasure, and not many Europeans, official or 

 otherwise, are travelling about in the districts. My duties 

 fortunately (?) took me into my districts at this time, and one 

 day, while trying to shoot some A. slentorius, I shot a bird 

 which I did not know, and eventually some days after, on 

 joining my kit, and looking it up in my books, I discovered I 

 had got a prize. I was then a long way off from the place 

 I obtained the above specimen ; and, though I sent a man to 

 shoot and carbolize as many specimens as he could get, he could 

 find none. The following are my notes on this bird : — 



li 25th August. — While beating some tamarisk bushes in the 

 middle of a swamp for A. stentorius I shot a bird I did not 



* They are really a good deal broader eggs. Fifty eggs of D. inornaia,fl\ei&ge 

 61 by 045, while fifty of R. rama average 0616 by 0-495.— A. O. H. 



