)YiCr 



478 ORNITHOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS IN SIKHIM, 



being rapidlj destroyed by Government officers, and I don't 

 know that any are being planted to take the places of the old 

 trees. What a dreary treeless waste India will be in a few 

 years more. I searched this wood one afternoon for Phyllos- 

 copus neglectus, and I never came across a single one ; but I 

 got a few Common Whitethroats (C. affinis), some Redstarts 

 {R. riifiventris) and other common birds. I was much disgust- 

 ed, for this fine Babool tract looked a likely place for 

 P. neglectus, and it was this bird, above all others, that I had 

 come to Sind to get. Before I reached the Babool wood, 

 I had passed through a very large field that had been inun- 

 dated land, and which, as the waters left it, had been sown 

 with a blue vetch. Scattered here and there over this vetch 

 field were little Tamarisk bushes, and I noticed a few Stone- 

 chats perched on them. I shot a few and got a pair of 

 Pratincola leucurus, a Pratincola indicus, and I also put up and 

 shot a few Bumesia lepida. Here and there an Anthus 

 hlakistoni got up, of which 1 shot one or two. When the 

 sun had gone down, I walked back to Sukhur, wondering 

 where P. neglectus, Hume's little Sind Phylloscopus, could be 

 found. Next day I resolved to go and search the Babool 

 wood again, and to try the vetch field on the way to it for 

 more Pratincola leucurus. I did not find a single Stoneehat, and 

 after passing the cultivated low land, I noticed an extensive 

 tract of tamarisk jungle to the right of the Babool wood, and 

 on the lower land nearer the river and its backwater. The 

 Tamarisk bushes were from 10 to 15 feet high, and in many 

 parts of this jungle grass grew pretty freely below the Tamarisk 

 trees. As I entered this jungle, I was struck with the note 

 of a very active Phylloscopus, and on shooting one, it appeared 

 to me at a first glance to be P. tristis ; but I had never heard 

 tristis utter such a note. On opening out the wing, I did 

 not see the usual light yellow, ridge of wing and axillaries, 

 but these parts were nearly white, so I shot several more, in 

 each case distinctly hearing the new note before I fired. All 

 that I shot corresponded Vith the first bird obtained. I then 

 heard, a little further on, the well-known note of P. tristis, 

 and I most carefully shot it, just as it uttered its feeble call. 

 It had the bright yellow ridge to wing and the sulphur ^/ellow 

 axillaries. I then felt quite sure that I had got a new species 

 closely allied to tristis. But this was not my only good 

 fortune that day. While after the new bird, another little 

 bird uttered a soft cheering note, something like that of Curruca 

 affinis, but fainter. Its notes were very whitethroat-like. 

 Expecting to see some sort of a Curruca, I got a glimpse, of it 



