390 A LIST OF BIRDS COLLECTED AND 



I followed the trace up. Leaving the South India Rail- 

 road at Amanaikanur, I travelled by Bandy, seventeen or 

 eighteen miles, passing through Battagundu, to the base of the 

 hill. From there coolies took my luggage and I went on 

 afoot. It was hard work for the coolies, as frequently we had 

 to climb up or go down around masses of granite that had not 

 been blasted sufficiently to allow of our following the line of 

 the trace. The trees on the hill side were small and scatter- 

 ing, and but few of them were in fruit, so we found but few 

 birds till we reached the large trees beside the river from 

 Panikadu. There was here and there a black headed Oriole 

 (0. ceylomnsis) , or a small flook of cat birds (Malacocircus 

 malabarieus) . Soon after reaching the large trees a number of 

 birds quarrelling attracted my attention. One was bright 

 colored and wishing particularly to make a more intimate ac- 

 quaintance, though he was so high up that I had little expec- 

 tation of bringing him down, I fired at him. Being wounded 

 he fell towards me and I was delighted to see he was a Trogon 

 (Harpacfes fasciatus). I stood ready to lay hold of the prize. 

 But having a little use of his wings he took a slant down the 

 hill side and went down so far that all our efforts to find him 

 proved vain, and at last the search was reluctantly given up. 

 This was the first failure to retrieve a valuable specimen from 

 being unable to find it in the bushes and grass of the hill sides, 

 but it was not the last. In some places, for all the care taken 

 to shoot birds only when they would fall in accessible places, 

 not half of those shot were found. 



After leaving the river in the stunted jungle on a hill side, 

 I obtained two males and a female of Irena puella and a 

 Tephrodornis sylvicola and they were the only specimens of 

 those species that I secured dnring my stay on the Palanis. 

 I shot two others of the same Wood Shrike, but they fell 

 among high grass, and every effort to find them proved unavail- 

 ino-. I also observed Irenas frequently afterwards, but always 

 at such a distance that they were off across some gorge to 

 another high tree half a mile away, before I could get 

 within range. 



From the Panikadu River to the Neutral Saddle the trace 

 is so well cleared that there is a fair bridle path. It winds 

 along through the scattered jungle and the high grass, pass- 

 ing now and then through a small grove of large trees 

 that is watered by one of the several streams that flow across 

 it. Birds are not abundant among the stunted trees. But they 

 are the home of Artamus fuscus, Picus mahrattensis, Yungipicus 

 gymnopthalmns, Megalaima viridis, Hemipus picatus, Lepfocoma 

 minima, Muni a punctulaia, Drgmoica inornata, Dumelia al- 



