132 Contributions to the Ornitliology of India, 8fC. 



rows, and have doubtless often been overlooked. They were 

 feeding entirely on the ground, and never once perched on any 

 bush, though occasionally they perched half way up on the mus- 

 tard plants, and often sunned themselves on the raised earthen 

 banks, by which the country is divided into large squares, and 

 the rain water, when rain does fall, prevented from running off. 

 Sylvia delicatula is very common evei'ywhere here. 



2Srd. — Marched to the Gaj, or at least to where this river 

 which rises in Khelat and comes through the hills, debouches 

 from the outermost range of these. For four or five miles, we 

 came through a thick peeloo jungle enclosing several hamlets 

 and a good deal of cultivation, due to the water of the Gaj, 

 beyond that we have for two or three miles a bare plain of rolled 

 boulders, sloping gently up to the foot of the first or outlying 

 ridge of the hills. This plain is absolutely bare and except 

 Ammomanes htsitania and Galerida cristata, showed no single 

 bird. In the peeloo jungle, a large blue pigeon, very pale and 

 with an almost pure white back, seemed common, and I also saw 

 several P. scindeamts. The outer ridge of the hills consists as at 

 Peer Godria, of a conglomerate of water- worn stones and boulders, 

 a large proportion of which are numulitic limestone, such as is 

 found in situ further in, in the hills. This outer ridge must 

 therefore, geologically speaking, be of comparatively recent 

 upheaval. About this ridge Ptionoprogne pallida, as I propose to 

 call the new pale crag swallow, is remarkably abundant. I failed 

 to see any other species. 



In the more cultivated parts, nearer our last encampment, 

 Saxicola deserti and picata were common, and here in the hills 

 I find what looks wondrous like Saxicola monacha and another 

 lara^e black and white wheatear. It is curious that I have not 

 seen a single S. leucura or opistlioleiiea any where in Sindh. 



24;^/^. — Marched some six or eight miles up the valley of the 

 Gaj through the hills, passing three other ridges besides the 

 first. They consist of very friable red and earthy-coloured sand- 

 stone and yellow clay. About these hills Saxicola Kingi was very 

 abundant, ditto A. hisitania, and there were a few Ji. nifiventris, 

 and these were the only birds seen in the bare desert parts, but 

 in one place where the valley encloses a broad strip of culturable 

 land, part of which is now in wheflt and parts have latel}' had 

 jowar, there were numbers of large blue pigeons, (some intermedia 

 some livia, and some betwixt and between) Coracias indica, &c. In 

 the tamarisk and jhund bushes, were numbers of AracJmechthra 

 asiailca. In the Gaj itself I shot a brace of Q. angustirostris, the 

 only ducks seen, and a very fine black stork, one of a party of five. 

 I saw also a common green shank, and a common sandpiper. 



