96 Contrlhidlons to the Omithology of India, Sfc. 



to l)e of this species. A few cranes^ but none within shot. 

 We iilso saw one or two Ceri/le ntdls, and in the evening-, as we 

 were out rowing-, a party of about 20 Seena mirantla passed us. 

 I also saw two or three pairs of Brahmiuies, and two or three 

 ^vasS\.^2iX\AQ^ oi.jEijialith cuTonicas and cantianus, hut SiS a, rule 

 the river was terribly bare. 



251/1. — We reached Boogga, half way to Shahpoor, about 2 

 o'clock this morning. Before starting" again, I walked out along 

 the banks where the loose sand was sparsely clad with stunted 

 tamarisk bushes. In the bare spaces between these latter, I 

 met with several small parties of the little sand lark which 

 I have previously christened Alaudida Adamsi. These larks were 

 rather wary, and we only obtained a single Specimen : they run 

 rapidly along the ground and squatting suddenly in some little 

 hollow, become entirely invisible as they are exactly concolorous 

 with the sand. They then creep or run ijnobserved along the 

 g-round and fly up at a considerable distance out of shot. The 

 whole party rise together and mount a considerable height in 

 the air. These are scarcely the habits of the Alaudula raytal 

 of the valley of the Ganges. 



.Restlessly creeping* sideways up the tamarisk bushes, showing 

 themselves for one instant on the top of a stem, their breasts 

 gleaming white in the morning sunlight, and their long 

 tails cocked up over their backs like Cetti's warbler, I 

 noticed and obtained several specimens of Biirnesia gracilis. 

 In their general movements they closely resemble, as might 

 be expected, the Prinias and Suyas, but they have a mode of 

 doubling back their tails over their heads which I have not noticed 

 in either of these genera. A few pairs of Saxicola deserti, 

 atrogularis, Bl. and (Edicnemus indicus were the only other inhabi- 

 tants of the tamarisk jungle; but on a poplar-shaped babool tree 

 in one of the fields that skirt the waste, I shot a huge dark 

 fulvescens. We got off about half-past 9 o'clock. During- the 

 day I saw and shot the only Emeus recurvirostris I have yet 

 met with. As a rule I think these birds chiefly affect those parts 

 of our rivers in which the banks are more or less rocky or stony, 

 or in which there are stony shoals. I saw a single cormorant, also 

 a bird which seems to prefer the vicinity of stones. 



In the Chumbal, for instance, and those portions of the Jumna 

 immediately below its junction with the Chumbal, which are 

 more or less rocliy or have rocky shoals, hundreds of both these 

 species would be met with in a third of the distance we have 

 here travelled, as also of Hoplopterus malaharicus, of which as 

 yet I have seen none. Cranes abundant as usual. Killed three. 

 The Demoiselle crane is not known, it seems^ to the boatmen, and 



