Contributions to the Ornithology of India, Sfc. 141 



water and down again in a couple of hundred yards^ and we of 

 course after them, but with no better results. At last I took 

 to blazing" at them as they rose, with S. G. green cartridge, from 

 the duck gun, but I had no luck, though the pellets rattled in 

 amongst them every time. Whilst we were after these, I saw 

 a party of Fodiceps nigricoUis, but there is no chasing grebes out 

 at sea unless the day is still, so we let them be. Then when we 

 were quite tired of the phaleropes, we caught sight of two un- 

 mistakeable shearwaters, so we up helm, and gave chase. 

 These however served us the same trick as the Phaleropes, 

 floated buoyantly on the water till we got about 100 yards 

 off, and then rose to drop again, a few hundred yards fur- 

 ther on — and so on, and so on, till my crew all but mutinied, and 

 I had to turn homewards, and then came the crowning misery of 

 the day, for just as we got on the bar, a gull, that I couldn't in 

 the least make out, but a skua of some sort I take it, flew 

 right over us, not above 20 yards high, and whether it was the 

 absurd way in which the boat was pitching and tossing, com- 

 pelling one to keep kneeling, or what I cannot say, but 1 let oif 

 three barrels at him, without loosening a feather. Came home, 

 my friends said, in a vile humour. 



IMh, — Went on board the Amhenvitch for a cruise ta 

 Gwader. Started about 10 a. m. Again saw the phaleropes, and 

 of couree lots of gulls and terns, but nothing new. 



\bth. — Made Korebutt, about 105 miles up the Mekran Coast. 

 High sandy perpendicular clifls, from 600 to 800 feet high, over- 

 hang the beach. Birds are very scarce — a few large gulls, borealis 

 and argentatiis, one L. ichthyatns, a pair of oyster-catchers, and a 

 pair of Kentish plovers were all the sea birds I got a^nd almost 

 all I saw. There were several common herons ; Seesee, A. 

 lusitania, and R. rufiventris common in the ravines. There too 

 we again came across 8. monaclm and the wheatear of the 

 picata type, but lai-ger and purer coloured, which I have called 

 alboniger. At sea we saw a couple of those wretched shearwaters, 

 and two or three parties of the swimming stints whieh can only 

 be phaleropes. 



IQth. — Made Pusnee, about IQ a. m. Saw some of the great 

 black-headed gull and killed both JPodiceps cristattts and mgrieoUik 

 and a skua., parasiticus, I think ; also several of Hemprich's gull. 

 On shore, I only saw Saxicola deserti, the *same- birds as at 

 Korebutt, dunlins, and T. platyrhyncha. 



nth. — Made Gwader about 8 a. m. The skua I shot yester- 

 day is, I think, a 2-year old, not a fully adult bird-, and it 

 is therefore difficult to be certain what it is. 



I saw several others, but I failed to secure any, although I did 



