126 ' Contrihitions to tlie Orniihology of India, 8fc. 



we crossed the ends of tong-ues of drifting sand hillocks^ running*' 

 down from the foot of the hills, and on these we saw several 

 desert larks. Nearer to and at the foot of the hills^ Ammomanes 

 lusitania was very common. 



In the immediate neighbourhood^ and everywhere east^ of 

 our tents, is a quantity of sirson, a mustard-like plant grown for 

 the oil which its seeds yield. The people do not take the trouble 

 to plough the land to sow this ; when the inundation sub- 

 sides, and the soil drying cracks, they simply throw the seed 

 into these cracks. In and about these sirson fields, if I may 

 so call, the irregular patches of cultivation of all sizes and shapes, 

 were numbers of CicMoides atrognlaris. 



In the afternoon I travelled over some 15 miles of country 

 lying between us and the hills, north and south, including tbat 

 tract in which I shot the three desert larks in the morning and 

 only saw one more. These birds seem always solitary and very 

 thinly scattered. Their chief food seems to be the seeds of the 

 lana, and their invariable haunt bare drift-sand swells and hil- 

 locks, about the bases of, and in between which are a few Ian a 

 bushes. I saw two or three houbara, and I may mention, that 

 generally all along within 15 miles or so of the foot of the hills 

 from Jacobabad, as I am informed right down, to the sea, the 

 houbara is pretty plentiful, though not nearly so numerous as it 

 is in parts of the Punjab, near Fazilka, of the Sirsa district for 

 instance. 



IMh. — Marched to Hummul. In the sands near the foot of 

 the hills, killed two more of the desert larks ; as usual, solitary 

 birds, a couple of miles or more apart, and both males. It is 

 curious that out of the 13 birds I have as yet seen and killed, 

 10 have been malesj Later in the day I went on to the dund, 

 where the marbled ducks were in thousands, mallard, gadwall, 

 white-eyed ducks, the common, and little cormorants, herons, 

 white, common, and purple, Larus argentatiis, shovellers, coots, and 

 water-hens, innumerable marsh buzzards, all young ones, eagles, 

 Bonelli^s, and others, a couple or so of brahminy kites. The 

 little grebe (common on all the dunds I have yet visited) , purple 

 coots with the loud flap, flap, flap of their heavy wings and com- 

 mon coots with the tit, tat, tat, tat of their clumsy feet along 20 

 yards of the water as they rise. Water hens swimming off with 

 perpetual perky-cockings of their little white-picked-out tails. 

 A heavy looking gull comes past, and at a shot whirls down, 

 round and round, hitting the water with a splash that may be 

 heard half a mile off, and straightway all the gulls in the 

 neighbourhood, regardless of guns and boats, appear close over 

 headj wheeling round and round; apparently to ascertain the cause 



