Contributions to the Ornitliology of India, Sfc. 103 



dead g-eese and fowl floating- in the river were never safe for an 

 instant from the swoops of these birds, and we had always to 

 keep a rifle loaded to guard our spoils by a warning- bullet ; 

 nay, despite bullets, they would sweep off a goose before one^s 

 face with the utmost audacity. Here they are few in numbers, 

 and the struggle for existence is apparently not so keen. Certain- 

 it is that during the last ten days I have had at least fifty fowl 

 floating in the river under circumstances that would in either 

 the Jumna, Chumbal, or Ganges have ensured the loss of at 

 least half, without a single swoop having been made at them. 

 Kingfishers are very scarce. I saw one Halcyon smyrnensis at 

 Pindadhun Khan on the banks of the Jhelum, and of Ceryle 

 rudis, I may have seen a dozen pairs altogether, and one family 

 of five, since starting. 



I found a large party of Gyps fidvescens, nobis, devouring a- 

 dead bullock on the banks of the river. It is useless any one 

 saying that these are only the young of fulvus. Here was a 

 party of fifty, all the same rich rufous tint. This month they 

 will lay, and the young birds that one shoots in April and 

 March, in fact before the first moult, are pale whitey brown. 

 It is not until after the first moult, that they get the rich fulves- 

 eent hue that characterizes the species, and the older the bird 

 (I judge by bones, bill, and claws) the richer the tint. That 

 the species is distinct from fulvus of Europe, appears to me 

 certain. 



\st Decemler. — "Walked along the banks ; shot a F. jugger 

 which as it passed rapidly I took for a Salter. Also a Pernis 

 eristata ; Saxicola, both isahellina, Kiipp., and deserti common, 

 CoraciQs indica, Buchanga alhinctus, numbers of Alaudula Adam- 

 si. I also obtained one specimen of the little Phjllopseuste that I 

 described in the Ibis, under the name of neglecta, and which 

 I originally received with other birds collected in Bhawulpoor 

 by my friend Captain C. Marshall. It was flitting about in the 

 babool trees with a lot of the lesser white throat, to which in 

 manners it seemed closely to approximate. No geese seen today 

 and only a few cranes ; but grey curlew very numerous, and 

 several parties of mallards, and grey duck, of each of which I 

 secured about a dozen. 



Since leaving Pindadhun Khan, I had repeatedly watched 

 numbers of sand-martins flitting about the banks or skimming 

 over the water catching gnats. To-day I again, as I had done 

 on several previous days, shot a pair, hoping that they might be 

 the European species (which I have never yet seen in India) 

 said by Adams to be common on these rivers. They proved, 

 however, to be (?. sinensis. Tarsi, entirely bare; wings, 3-7, 



