54 THE BIRDS OF A DROUGHT. 



Map the whole country out carefully into iso-ombric zones 

 and patches, and of a vast number of tropical and sub-tropical 

 species, you can at once map out the exact distribution. 



No doubt there are some species, to whom wide variations 

 in rainfall seem to signify nothing, others that an almost total 

 absence of rainfall fails to banish, and it is a matter of much 

 interest to determine which these species and genera are. 



During the last cold season I remained for nearly a month 

 at Jodhpoor ; and as this place, besides having normally a rainfall 

 of only about 6 inches, had, during the previous 15 months, had 

 no rain at all, only two or three times little attempts at showers 

 insufficient even to lay the dust, it occurred to me that an exact 

 record of the birds actually then present, between January 15th 

 and February 15th, in this rainless and waterless entourage 

 might be both interesting and useful. 



Accordingly I collected most carefully. Not only was I out 

 each morning at daylight, searching vigorously for birds for 

 some three hours, but I had out two natives, well trained 

 to the work, shooting all day. I doubt very much if a single 

 species then present within a radius of from eight to ten miles 

 from the town escaped us. 



The tract worked was a nearly level semi-desert sandy 

 plain, dotted about at rare intervals, with tiny patches of culti- 

 vation, and here and there studded with low hills of bare 

 rock (on one of which Jodhpoor stands) from one to three 

 hundred feet in height. The rest of the plain is more or less 

 thinly covered with stunted or dwarf thorny scrub, intersper- 

 sed with bare sand, or congeries of wind-waved blown-sand 

 hillocks. In tiny valleys of the rocky hills, a few small 

 artificial tanks still held water, but not a drop of this was to 

 be found elsewhere, and a large proportion of the wells were 

 dry. 



If ever there was an unpromising field for an ornithologist 

 it was here ; and yet not only w r ere a good many species to 

 be found, but two or three of these, species of some interest. - 



I will now subjoin a list of the species obtained, with such 

 few remarks as these seem to call for. 



2. — Otogyps calvus. 5. — Pseudogyps bengaleusis. 6.— Neo- 

 phron ginginianus. 11. — Falco jugger, rare. 16. — Falco 

 chiquera. 17. — Cerchueis tinnuncula, rare. 29. — Aquila 

 vindhiana. 45 — Buteo ferox, rather scarce. 56. — Milvus 

 govinda. 72. — Ketupa ceylonensis, only one single specimen 

 seen and shot. 76. — Athene brama. 82. — Hirundo rustica. 

 90. — Ptyonoprogne concolor, rare. 117. — Merops viridis, 

 scarce. 129. — Halcyon smyrnensis, very rare; only seen 

 at the little tanks above referred to. 148.— Palseornis 



