BIRDS I ROM NORTHERN AND WESTERN PERSIA. 849 



A list of nearly three dozen birds can be made out, each represented by a 

 different sub-species in the plateau and the forest. Generally the desert race is 

 pale or buff, as is so often the case. The forest race is either that typical 

 of central Europe, or dark and saturated in colour. 



The road north from Menjil runs through dry forests past Noglabar until 

 the lowest of the foothills is passed, and before it reaches Resht it enters the wet 

 forest. This covers the flat country and grows from wet and frequently black 

 water-logged ground. Its altitude is very little above the Caspian level and it 

 is probably all of it below mean sea level. The trees are more luxuriant, more 

 closely packed and more covered with creepers than those in the dry forest. 

 In fact the general appearance is not unlike that of a tropical rain forest in 

 Equatorial Africa or the West Indies, until one examines the great trees and 

 finds that they belong to well-known European genera {Fagus, Abius,&:c.,) and 

 that the creepers which climb liigh into their crowTis are such well-knowTi things 

 as Clematis, Ruhus and Synilax. The wet forest is never under snow for more 

 than a few hours, though Woosnam encountered 2 feet of snow at Resht in the 

 first week of February. The men who inhabit this region of wet forest raise 

 great quantities of rice and deep-cut irrigation channels run in all directions: these 

 and the denseness of the forest and the intense wetness of everything make 

 exploration difficult. Until the war there was an extensive silk raising industry, 

 and plantations oi mulberry are common. Oranges and lemons are grown 

 here in profusion, also cherries and large garden strawberiies : there are one or 

 two experimental tea gardens. It appears that conditions are uniform as regards 

 cUmate, vegetation and animal life along the whole S. W. & S. shore of the 

 Caspian, and Satunin's (1905) account of the low-Mng marsh and forest of the 

 Talish is true in all essentials of Gilan and probably Mazandaran. Apart from 

 the forest there are the lagoons, of which there is a fine example between Resht 

 and Enzeli. The water is brackish near the sea, but fresh on the Resht side. 

 The lagoon is fringed by reed beds and bramble tliickets and in places the shore 

 is flat and muddy. Similar lagoons are found here and there all along the 

 coast ; some are a few acres only in extent and are blocked with reeds, others 

 like Asterabad Bay and the Resht-Enzeli lagoon are ten or twenty miles across. 

 They are all at Caspian Sea level and in the majority of cases lie a few hundred 

 yards back from the shore. Between the lagoon and the sea is a tract of grazing 

 land with scattered low trees of the thorny Gleditschia, Whitethorn, Medlar, &c. 

 The actual sea coast at Enzeli, but not on the Talish is bounded by sand-dunes. 



I myself spent seven months at Resht and Enzeli and travelled along the 

 coast from Astara to Enzeli : Cheesman was in Enzeli in June : Ingoldby was 

 in Resht and Enzeli in the winter and also at Bandar-i-Gez in Asterabad Bay. 

 Our ornithological results were frankly disappointing. This was in part due to 

 a so-called war with Kuchik Khan, a local insurgent ; this war lasted through 

 the spring and prevented one from lea\ing Enzeli during the nesting season : 

 but apart from this the dense forest resembles similar country in most other 

 parts of the world and has an extremely poor fauna, at any rate in summer. 

 We saw enough of the lowlands and the wet forest to feel confident in recom. 

 mending travellers to get quickly away from Resht and Enzeli. The wet forest 

 is now fairly well known, not as a result of our work only, but of that of Zarudny 

 and of Woosman (Witherby 1910). The dry forest is more attractive and less 

 known and this applies particularly to the Talish hinterland, which would b3 

 most interesting country to \'isit. The Tahsh tribesmen have a bad nam? and 

 speak an almost unknown language, but I formed the opinion that they would 

 give little trouble if they were sure that the traveller were neither a Persian 

 official nor a Russian. 



The following birds are all more or less common, and all resident round Resht 

 and Enzeli ; they indicate the extremely European nature of the fauna — 

 Sharpe's Crow, Magpie {P. p. bactriana), J&y, Chaffinch, Tree Sparrow {Passer 



