THE BIRDS OF KOHAT AND THE KURRAM VALLEY. 173 



Ornithologically speaking, this corner of the Palaearctic Region* has hitherto 

 been little worked. With the exception of the two papers by Colonel 

 R. H. Rattray published in the " Journal " of the Bombay Natural History 

 Society, " Notes on Nests taken from March to June at Kohat and Mussoorie, 

 North-Western Provinces" (vol. x. p. 628), and "Birds collected and 

 Observed at Thall " (vol. xii. p. 337), and a few observations by Major 

 Wardlaw-Ramsay and others mentioned in the " Fauna of British India," I 

 know of no contribution to its ornithology^. Neither Hume nor Jerdon, 

 Oates nor Blanford, nor others of India's many excellent ornithologists, 

 appear to have visited it. And yet it is an important locality, lying as it does 

 in the extreme north-west of the Peninsula on one of the great migration- 

 highways into India, and at a point on that highway where it converges to its 

 narrowest limits. The pre-eminently Palsearctic character of the avifauna is 

 most striking. Especially is this noticeable in the forms breeding in the Upper 

 Kurram, very few of the many subtropical species inhabiting the Western 

 Himalayas being found there. From the description of the Country and 

 from its geographical position the predominance of such groups as the 

 Accipitrines, Motaciilidae, Fringillinaa, Emberizinas, and of the desert-forms will 

 not be considered surprising. Although undoubtedly well represented on 

 migration, the Ducks, Waders, and shore-birds are difficult of observation in 

 Kohat. With the exception of the grass-farm, the tank at Dhand-Idl-Khel, 

 and some marshy tracts round Thall and Lachi, this district is singularly 

 devoid of the moist places beloved of Wildfowl and Waders, no streams of any 

 size flowing through it. Matters improve in this respect on arriving at the 

 Kurram Valley. The river here being taken off for rice-cultivation in places 

 along its banks, marshy spots have formed, and in the month of February, March 

 and April, September and October, numbers of Wild -fowl and Waders, using 



* Dresser in the preface to his " Manual of Palsearctic Birds" does not clearly define the 

 Paleearctic boundary in this locality, and by omitting all reference to the plains of India 

 would seem to imply that Kohat belongs to the Indian Subregion. On the other hand, 

 Blanford in his " Distribution of Vertebrate Animals in India " assigns the plains of the 

 Punjab to the Palsearctic Begion. Professor Newton, however, in his article on " Birds " 

 in the 'Encyclopaedia Britannica,' remarks that if Baluchistan is to be excluded from the 

 Palaearctic Kegion, " then tbe line of demarcation must run inland and so continue between 

 that, land and Afghanistan till ascending the right bank of the Indus it turns the shoulder 

 of the Great Snowy range." The italics are mine, and 1 take this to mean that tbe line 

 of demarcation strikes the Indus at a point in prolongation eastward of the Boundary-line 

 between Afghanistan and Baluchistan, i.e., somewhere in the vicinity of Dera Ghazi Khan. 

 If this is the correct interpretation of Newton's views then the ornithology of N. W. India 

 strongly supports them. 



t There is only one allusion to Kohat itself in the " Fauna of British India," and that is 

 in connection with the occurrence there of the Ked-wing {Tardus iliacus), recorded by Jerdon 

 on hearsay from Blyth, on hearsay from Trotter. After more than two years' careful 

 observation we failed to come across this bird, and I think we may safely say that it is not 

 " a regular winter visitant," if it occurs at all. 



