Contrihutions to the Ornithology of India, Sfc, 289 



rounded by wild water-fowl which he adroitly pulls under water 

 without in the slightest disturbing the rest. Sometimes we 

 were told he drags with him a piece of double rope, twisted, with 

 a stone or weight fastened to it ; each bird as it is caught has 

 the neck thrust between the twists of the rope, and thus as many 

 as twenty will be captured at a single trip ; some have a light 

 cord fastened round the loins, between which and their bodies 

 they thrust the neck ; in either case they kill the duck almost 

 instantaneously by a sharp twist of the neck. I never myself 

 saw the ducks thus caught, but a man put on the pelican hel- 

 met, and made it sail about before me in such wise that, even 

 when quite close, it was difficult to believe that it was not a 

 living bird. 



1005.— Graculus carbo, L, 



The common cormorant was abundant in Sindh. Small parties 

 were occasionally noticed the whole way down the rivers Jhelum, 

 Chenab, and Indus from Jhelum to Kurrachee. I saw a few 

 also in the Muncher lake. Everywhere along the Mekran Coast 

 they were abundant, and on the 23rd February, I shot and 

 preserved a very fine male at Muscat in almost full breeding plum- 

 age. Does any body know where these birds breed in India ? 

 For ten years at least I have been on the look-out for their eggs, 

 but entirely without success, though I have been told that they 

 breed on rocky islands and also on trees near Mhow Burriaree 

 in the Jumna, about thirty miles north of Allahabad. 



1007.— Graculus melanognatlius, Brandt. 



— G. javanicus, Horsf. 



The little cormorant swarmed in all the inland waters of Sindh. 

 Unlike the larger coriliorant, I never saw it on the sea coast. 



1008.— Plotus melanogaster, Penn. 



I did not preserve any specimen of this species ; but I saw it, 

 though not often, in some of the larger inland lakes, and I met 

 with one specimen seated sunning itself, with wings extended, on 

 a large rock, in the Nurreenai, just inside the hills. 



A. O. H. 



