MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 607 



According to Blanford — Fauna of British India, Birds, Vol. IV,, P. fasciatus, 

 " does not occur west of the Indus." When Vol. IV. was published I wrote 

 to Professor Blanford and told him of the Trans-Indus occurrence of this 

 sandgrouse. In his reply he suggested that the bird might be P. lichf&isteini. 

 Since then I have been away from Mardan and have had no chance of 

 securing a specimen of fasciatus until this year, Tn December ;i flock was 

 put up by a party from the corps shooting near Kustom and one bird was 

 killed by a Native Officer out with us. It was badly shot and got damaged 

 in the game bag, so ii; was not possible to do more than roughly skin it for 

 identification. Painted sandgrouse are found near Rustom in low stony 

 hills with a fair quantity of jungle growing on them. They are generally 

 put up in pairs or small flocks. The natives say they are always there but 

 the numbers vary, some years there being many more than others. 



Another bird not apparently recorded West of the Indus, Gallinago nemo- 

 rieola, was shot by me near this place in 1887. It may be thought that it 

 was G. soUtaria and not nemoricola as the former is more likely to occur in 

 this part of the country. I have, however, shot at least twenty solitary snipe 

 in Kashmir and therefore know soUtaria well, I carefully identified the 

 bird both from Jerdon and Hume and Marshall and there was not the slight- 

 est doubt as to its being a specimen of G. nemoricola. 



Mardan, F. J, H. BAETON, Majoe, 



2nd February 1902. The Guides. 



No. XV.— OCCURRENCE OF THE CeESTNUT-HEADED 



SHORT-WING (0L/(?f7ii'^ CAST ANEICORO^ ATA) AND 



NESTING OF THE BLACK-CHINNED YUHINA {YUHINA 



NIGRIMENTUM) IN KUMAON. 



I am sending you a specimen of the Chestnut-headed Short-wing {Oligiira 

 castaneicoronata, Oates) which may be interesting as Oates gives its distribution 

 as Nepal, Sikkim and the Khasi Hills, This one I shot here (Kumaon) at an 

 elevation of 4,000 feet out of a party of four, they did not appear to bi? breed- 

 ing. They are remarkably wren-like in their movements which first attracted 

 my attention, I am afraid tlie specimen is rather badly prepared, 



I also send you a Black-chinned Yuhina (Yuhina nigrimentuni), shot ofi^ its 

 nest. The nest was placed under an overhang,ing bank and slung among a 

 lot of fine roots from which the earth had fallen away, an ordinary open nest 

 made of moss and a very little cobweb externally and lined entirely with very 

 fine hair-like fern root. The eggs (3) were not white .as given in Cates but 

 greenish-white spotted with brown, mostly at the larger end, I cannot find 

 any other record of this bird's eggs. 



S. L, WHYMPER, 

 Jeolikote, N.-W. P,, 

 April, 1902, 



