ASSAM, SYLHET AND CACHAR. 289 



767.— Alauda gulgula, Frankl. 



This species was sparsely distributed about the drier 

 portions of the Manipur basin. About Bishnoopoor and 

 Booree Bazar I noticed several and shot a few, but further 

 south in the damper lowlands I shot none and saw, I believe, 

 very few ; of course I never saw it in the hills. 



I did not notice this anywhere in Sylhet or Cachar, nor, 

 strange to say, have I any specimens from or note of its 

 occurrence in any part of Assam, Sylhet and Cachar, save 

 that Godwin-Austen includes it (I suppose from the low 

 country below them) in his Dafla hill list. It occurs in Arakan 

 throughout South-eastern Pegu, and in Tenasserim, about 

 Moulmein and between the Sittang and Salween. Further as 

 yet I know not. 



[The Lark that I found fairly common in Dibrugarh was A. 

 australis, which Mr. Hume in his " List of the Birds of India " 

 considers a questionable species.* Not having specimens 

 either of this or A. gulgula at hand I am unable to state the 

 differences, which were pronounced ones, or else I would 

 have entered them as A. gulgula, which he found in Manipur. 

 I give measurements, however, of those that I shot in April 



Irides olive brown, legs and feet dusky fleshy ; soles yellow ; 

 claws horny brown ; bill dusky above, fleshy beneath. Their 

 note was like that of A. raytal, Bly., but louder of course.-^ 

 J. R. C] 



771. — Treron nipalensis, Hodgs. 



This Tigeon seemed rather common in the low forest 

 between Jhiri Ghat and the Noongzai-ban range, but I never 

 again met with it in Manipur. 



This species I have from low down in both the Garo and 

 Khasi hills, Northern Sylhet, and N.-E. Cachar, and from 



* With some of Brooka' types and a large series of both forms before me, 

 forms which melt into one another, I have never been able quite to satisfy myself 

 of their distinctness. It is simply out of the question that Mr. Cripps in the 

 jungle, with no specimens for comparison and without even having ever seen one 

 of the Southern Indian birds, should be able to pronounce correctly as to hia 

 birds being australis and not gulgula. — I am morally certain that they were not 

 australis ; even if this be a good species, it does not eccur on the slopes and 

 about the bases of the Nilghiris, to turn up again plentiful in Dibrugarh and 

 occur nowhere else ia the enocmous^ intermediate area, — A. 0. H. 



37 . 



