116 Contfihitmis to the Ornithology of India, ^c. 



more destitute of bird-life. A few ravens^ doves, wheatears^ 

 picata and deserti, Galerita cristata, and common sparrows^ were 

 almost the only birds we saw after we had got well clear of the 

 trees of cantonment. A single kestrel, one or two common 

 blue pigeons, a single common quail, and a very, few shrikes both 

 lathora and isahellinus, the only other species,.! can remember. 

 We saw indeed two or three flights of sand grouse, P. alchata, 

 high in the air, but they were too far distant to permit a suc- 

 cessful shot. 



2,^nd. — We got a fine specimen of Brachji^ternus dllutns 

 which I certainly think is very doul)tfully distinct. The number 

 of ravens in cantonments is really very surprising. Towai'ds 

 evening, some of the largest trees are quite black with them. 

 The extraordinary way in which numbers of them yearly die 

 both when they first come in and when they are leaving, has 

 already been noticed, but I may add here, that some people 

 attribute this to the quantities of putrid fish they devour at 

 these times. Sir William Merewether tells me that the flight 

 and cry of P. coronatus are both quite difl'erent from those of 

 all the other species. They have a curious fluttering flight, and 

 appear often to hover in the air, especially before settling, and 

 their cry is a twittering one. 



%^rd. — Rode out to Dil Morad, about ten miles on the Kus- 

 more road, to get more specimens of the desert lark. We got 

 four altogether, after very hard work, and these were all we saw 

 after traversing some twentyfive miles of desert country, with a 

 line some half mile long. We found them in every case solitary 

 birds. About four or five miles apart, very tame, running exactly 

 like coursers, unwilling to take wing-. Ver}^ conspicuous objects, 

 looking almost white in the sun light, and easily seen from a 

 camel, at two or three hundred yards distant. There is plenty 

 of similar sand desert across the Indus in the Roree sub-divi- 

 sion, but Dr. Day, who has kindly been working* that locality 

 for me, never met with one ; so too in Jeysulmeer and other 

 portions of Western Rajpootana theve are very suitable localities, 

 but I have never seen one there, nor obtained any specimens 

 thence. It seems to be only trans- Indus^ on the skirts of large 

 tracts of moving sandhills that are more or less connected 

 with, or run down from the hills of Beloochistan and Khelat^ 

 that they are met with. Here they are found, not actually as far 

 as I can judge on the absolutely bare wind-rippled, loose sand 

 swells, but on the little level plains, scantily studded with low 

 bushes [Anabasis midtifiora,) that lie within and around these 



* Since this was written, Dr. Stoliczka has obtained this species in Cutch. 



