332 JO UREAL, BOMB A Y NA TUBAL HISTOR Y .SOCIETY, Vol. X 



them down, the country which they infest being for the most part a barren 

 rocky desert. On the 27th we shot the big nala, well known to everybody 

 who has shot there as a first-rate ground for duck and snipe, "While 

 waiting behind a large screen of reeds for the duck to be driven overhead, I 

 saw a flight of a dozen common starling {Sturnus vulgaris) pass over my head. 

 The nala contained a good many gadwall, wigeon, and teal, also a few mallard 

 and spotbill, but the birds were so wild that we did not bring many to 

 bag, and snipe-shooting was very trying owing to the immense number of 

 swallows and martins flying about, which quite put one off. The nala is 

 a veritable Irish bog, and woe betide the man who failed to put his foot 

 (contrary to what we would do in Ireland though) on the greenest of grass 

 tussocks. This makes the snipe-shooting still more difScult, as the wily bird 

 always manages to get up when you have to leap from one tussock to another 

 and have lowered your hammers to half-cock, or put your safety bolt at " safe." 

 Grey lag geese, though never plentifully scattered in Cutch, were found in 

 places where I have never seen them before. The avocet {Avocetta recurvi- 

 rostra) is very plentiful this year. I have never seen it before, nor is it record- 

 ed in the " Birds of Cutch." Spotted sand grouse (P. senigallus) are very 

 plentiful. It is extraordinary how some men — keen shikaris — will persist in 

 calling this bird the " Pintailed grouse," to which it bears no resemblance what- 

 ever ; simply because it has a pinnated tail I suppose. The true painted grouse 

 (P. alcheta) does not occur at all here. P. arenarius (the " Imperial " as we 

 call it) is not numerous this year owing to the poor rains and lack of food in 

 the fallow fields. 



The shooting here is, however, not equal to that of Kathiawar, but it is 

 strictly preserved and no one may shoot without His Highness' permission. 

 A strict close season is observed for all game except florican, rain-quail and 

 sand grouse (P. exustus) from the 15th March to the 15th September. I have 

 also to record the occurrence of Falco hahjlonicus (the Red-cap falcon), 

 which has hitherto only been recorded from Sind. Two were shot by His 

 Highness, whose shikaris said they were " shahin " {Falco peregrinator') , but I 

 identified them from Hume's description of a female shot by him, which he 

 recorded in" Rough Notes," an extract from which appears in Barnes' " Birds 

 of Bombay." The birds sent me tallied exactly with that description of 

 F. bahylonicus, but differed somewhat from Jerdon's. 



His Highness the Rao tried to introduce the Somali guinea-fowl (common 

 blue-headed sort) into his oreserves at Godsar, some four miles from Bhuj,and 

 turned several couple loose. Eggs were found (broken), but none of the birds 

 have been seen for some time, and I fear they must have been destroyed, as wild 

 cats of three species — jackals, mungooses, and foxes — are very abundant, and 

 the birds must have become particularly tame after some weeks in confinement. 

 Grain used to be thrown out for them at a certain spot, but after a time they 

 gave up coming. The Somali spur-fowl (a Francolin of sorts) was also tried, 



