102 Contributions to the Ornithology of India, 8fc, 



at him, which had disappeared down stream, but which we 

 ultimately picked up,) which I skimmed at him. 



Later a hug-e flock of g-eese, all swimming" in the river, show- 

 ing- that they had been disturbed. They rose at, I g-uess, about 

 90 yards ; but my long- No. 8 bore g-un, with green BB car- 

 tridg-e, fetched three of them, and one misguided bird flyiug 

 straight at us, instead of beating a retreat with the rest, rolled 

 over with a loose charge of No. 8. Afterwards I got within 

 40 yards of three grey duck, they rose, two flying abreast passed 

 within 20 yards, flyiug low and slow, and I missed them, while 

 the third which went right away fell dead, at over 60 yards to a 

 green No. 3. 



A party of five mallard, amongst a huge flock of T. fuscus 

 and calidru ; I knocked over two mallards just as they rose and 

 a third in the air. Of the two first, one rose again and flew half 

 a mile, dropping dead in the river. The other t\vo both scrambled 

 into the water, and the usual chase succeeded, one especially 

 diving backwards and forwards under the boat in a manner more 

 surprising' than satisfactorji-, with a boat not too easy to pull, 

 and a stream running some six miles an hour. Ultimately both 

 were secured without firing. I saw two or three Esaciis recur- 

 virostris, and perhaps half a dozen black-bellied terns in the 

 whole day. In the Jumna we should have seen at least fifty of 

 these, S. aurantia, S. minnta, and Rhynchops alhicollis in the thirty 

 odd miles of river we have come. We halted at Asoowallah, 35 

 cos, (? about 53 miles) from Mooltan. 



30;^/^. — ^We halted last night about ten miles above the junC'^ 

 tion of the Ravee, and started again about 4 A. M. About 8 

 o^clock, I saw a small hawk perched on a tiny bush close to the 

 bank. I landed and shot it when it proved to be an adult male 

 merlin, the first 1 have yet shot or seen this trip. In the far 

 North-West, this species is common in the cold weather, and I 

 have had them sent me from near Umritsur and from the Sirsa 

 district, but have never met with them further East. The day 

 gave nothing to record. I saw great numbers of grey duck 

 (bagged sixteen,) of Brahminies (bagged four,) of mallard 

 (bagged four,) one teal, which I shot, two pair of Spatula clypeata, 

 the first I have seen on these rivers, and innumerable geese and 

 cranes of which I bagged a dozen ; green and red shanks, and 

 grey curlews, numerous ; several Esacus recurvirostris. On the 

 babool trees, on the banks on which I daily wandered for some 

 miles, Sylvia curriica or affinis, vide infra, was very abundant, 

 while Pratincola caprata and indica twittered and flittered 

 about every dwarf shrub. Two or three pairs of H. leucoryphus 

 were seen in a 30 miles pull. On the Jumna, wounded or 



