113 Contributions to the Ornithology of India, ^c. 



cot'is, which was^ as usual, very abundant in the tamarisk. The 

 Litter bird has a very liquid musical song-;, some of the notes 

 of which remind one strongly of the nig-hting-ale. 



On the river, 1 succeeded in bag-ging- a black s'^ork. A party 

 of four allowed me to come within 100 yards, and 1 brought one 

 down with my duck gun, a very powerful weapon, a single 8 

 bore muzzle-loader, octagon breech, 44 inch barrel, which with 

 6 drams of powder, and a wire cartridge containing 100 BB, 

 pellets, is strangely effective. Further on I came upon five pelicans 

 as I thought crispus and philippensis. The latter, however, a 

 single bird looked so large, that I picked it out and sent a ball 

 through it at 250 yards. We rowed up to it, and then the four 

 other pelicans came flying over again to see what was up. One 

 which, from the apparently rosy tinge it had when sitting, I 

 thought might be Onocrolahts, flew over within 80 yards; I gave 

 it the duck gun and heard the shot hit it hard ; it rose, then 

 swooped for some 200 yards, and when within about 100 feet of the 

 water, fell suddenly, head-over-heels, splashing into the river like 

 an aereolite. These birds both proved to be crispus, the former a 

 young one, the latter an old female, without, when in the handj 

 the faintest rosy hue. I now believe that all the pelicans hitherto 

 seen have been crispus. 



During the day I saw several hundreds, but as No. 1 was 

 not quite finished, and Nos. 2 and 3 were still to skin, I let them 

 be. I saw a good number of cranes and killed twelve. Some 

 grey lag, but failed to get within shot. No ducks. As for the 

 common and white herons, I saw vast numbers. Green shank, 

 a few. One large flock of Tringa minuta, of which I dropped six 

 as they passed. Several times I have seen young Circus cen- 

 ginosus aljout the banks, and to-day I came upon one perched 

 on a piece of brushwood stranded in a shoal, half a mile away 

 from any land or sandbank. A magnificent pair of H. albicilla 

 tempted me to waste a B B cartridge, but though the shot rattled 

 like hail against the wide pinions of the female and cut out 

 several feathers, she soared away apparently unhurt. 



Until this day I have not seen a single gull. To-night, just at 

 dusk, a vast flock of several hundreds passed overhead. They 

 were far off, and appareh|;ly of different sizes and species. I 

 particularly noticed one very black-headed L. ichthycRtiis ; 

 I missed or at least failed to drop him, but I got one with 

 each of the following three barrels (the duck gun unfortunate- 

 ly was not at hand) and these all proved to be Lams argentatus, 

 two adults, and one with the dark band still traceable towards 

 the ends of the rectrices. 



liith. — lleached Kusmore, our first point in Sindh^ this day at 



