100 Contrihutions to the Ornithology of India, SfC. 



The bill and feet vary much in colonrj sometimes both are a 

 pale dirty pink;, at others the bill will be a livid purplish red^ 

 and the feet a pale cream colour^ barely ting-ed with pink. The 

 plumage, too, varies a good deal. In some which I take to be 

 the young, the lower breast, and the whole abdomen to vent, are 

 pure white ; in many they are strongly tinged with sandy or 

 orange, in others very thickly and consjDicuously mottled with 

 brownish black. The head and neck vary from pale asliy or 

 earthy brown, to dark clove brown ; in most there is a mingled 

 white and orange patch on the forehead. In some there is a 

 similar spot at the base of the upper mandible, on each side, just 

 above the gape. Often in birds killed just before they leave 

 us in March or April, most of the feathers of the head and 

 cheeks are obscurely tipped with orange, and traces of this are 

 seen on the whole neck. Does this indicate an undescribed 

 breeding plumage, or do our birds differ from the European ? 

 I note that most of our birds have a tiny patch of white on the 

 centre of the chin and that the i rides are dark brown. 



Tetanus fuscus swims well, not merely v/hen wounded, but at 

 times from choice. I once came upon a large flock, all busy 

 swimming in a deep railway excavation full of water, in the 

 Etawah district, and shot about a dozen with two barrels, think- 

 ing they must be some bird new to me ; one that I wounded to- 

 night swam down the river, nearly a mile, before we could come 

 u]3 with it. 



28^/i. — Soon after starting, came upon a small party of mal- 

 lard and shot four, then a pair of Anas pmJcilorhpicha, the grey 

 duck, and bagged both right and left ; then another pair of this 

 latter species (of which I had previously seen only one other 

 pair since starting) came flying a tremendous pace up the river ; 

 they passed at about eighty yards distance, but a green cartridge 

 dropped both^ a most astounding fluke ! I notice that 

 in the grey duck, the gurumpai of native sportsmen, the 

 feet of the female are always a dull tile red, while those of 

 the male are the most intense coral red I have ever seen. 

 The yellow and red patches on the bill are also duller 

 coloured in the female, and she has much less white on the 

 tertiaries : she is also somewhat smaller. 



Heretofore, since leaving Jhelum, the banks have always been 

 low, rarely rising- even ten feet out of tiie water ; but this morning 

 on our right, for some miles in length, the banks rose precipitously 

 some forty or fifty feet high, earthen and sandy cliffs, amongst 

 the debris of which I noticed several Saxicoline birds. Landed 

 and succeeded in shooting one, (they were remarkably wary) 

 which proved to be my new . Saxicola Kingi (described in Ibis, 



