Contributions to the Ornithology of India, 8fc. 139 



mole. The large gull was less common outside. The Cas- 

 pian tern was common. Then I shot Larus HempricJdi, I am 

 sure of the bird^ as I perfectly remember the figure Finsch 

 gave in his Abyssinian paper in the Zoo. They seem tolerably 

 plentiful at the mouth of the harbour, not so common inside. 

 About the rocks of Munora head_, is a swift, which I believe to 

 be Tristram's barhatus, the size and shape of apus, but a wood- 

 brown almost the colour of melba, and the feathers all excessive- 

 ly narrowly margined whitish. I obtained only two. But there 

 were plenty, and they breed, it is said, both in the buildings and 

 on the rocks, but I could see no trace of any nest. On the 

 mud banks I obtained four Demiegretta gularis, asJia, apud 

 Sykes, several Turnstones, and half a boat load of shore plovers, 

 Cirrepidesnius Geoffroyi and mongolicns. 



1th. — In the harbour all day ; birds very wild. Got some scores 

 more of shore plovers, Thalasseus cmitiaciis, and bengalensis, and 

 Caspian terns. I saw several turnstones, and numbers of oyster- 

 catchers, but failed to obtain any. D. gularis I obtained. I also 

 shot both red shanks and several dunhn, and got for the first 

 time in my life Tringa plafyrhyncha and several Limosa mfa in 

 winter plumage, besides a large Tringa which I took to be the knot, 

 but which seems too large for this and has puzzled me greatly. I 

 succeeded in getting specimens, but cannot identify them.* All 

 the terns and Thalasseus dart down head-foremost, king-fisher- 

 like into the water, and have straight pointed bills suited for 

 this work, and by preference sit on the land, while the gulls 

 pick up things with a kite-like swoop, have hooked bills, and 

 I think sit on water more than on land. 



%th. — In the harbour all day. Got several more Tringa 

 plafyrhyncha, Demiegretta gzdaris, Limosa rufa, the large tringa 

 that I cannot identify, the dunlin, the Kentish tern. I also killed 

 an oyster- catcher, Squatarola helvetica, Terehia cinerea, a bird I 

 never killed before, though vSimson sent it to me from Dacca, and 

 Calidris arenaria. This latter has only three toes, and it associates 

 a great deal with the small plovers, but it certainly feeds and 

 runs more like the tringas than the plovers. The Kentish and 

 Bengal crested Terns, affect the mouth of the harbour 

 chiefly. The oyster-catchers, at high tide when all the flats 

 aire covered, associate in huge flocks, but at low watei', are scatter- 

 ed about feeding on the mud, in twos and threes ; they are very 

 wary, and keep up perpetually a shrill warning cry. I saw a peli- 

 can (not near enough to make sure of the species) and several 

 flamingoes. There is a gigantic flock of the common cormo- 



* These were Tringa Crassirostris, Schlegel. 



