106 Capt. A. H. McMabon — Fa2wa 0/ the Gilgit District. [No. 2, 



With but few exceptions the fauna of the country may be termed 

 nomadic. The reptiles, and a few mammals only such as the marmots, 

 the rats, the hamsters and voles can be said to have any permanent resi- 

 dence throughout the year. Even the rat leaves his summer country 

 house in the fields for his winter one in the shelter of the roofs and walls 

 of houses on the approach of the cold season. The other mammals 

 are purely nomadic. As the heat in the lower valleys increases they 

 betake themselves higher and higher into the upper valleys, either 

 following tbe lower fringe of snow line, as in the case of markhor, 

 (Capra falconeri), Shapu ( Ovis vignei), hares, lynxes, wolves, foxes, wild 

 dogs, bears ai]d martens ; or keeping above the snow line nearly all 

 the yc:.r round as in the case of ibex {Capra Sihirica) and snow 

 leoparcfc. The fishes too range widely throughout the year, ascending 

 in the summer to the very feet of the glaciers and retreating in the 

 winter down to the warmer waters of the Indus Valley. 



The birds, as in most other countries, travel widely ; the majority 

 are only winter visitors ; some pause merely for a short rest on their 

 journeys to and from India from Central Asia and other northern 

 climes; others stay the whole winter. Even those which one might 

 perhaps call permanent Gilgit residents, such as the Lammergeier 

 (Gypaetus barhatus) and certain eagles and hawks, abandon the lower 

 valleys and resort to the upper ones for the summer. 



One cannot fail to be struck by the absence of animal life in the 

 lower valleys in the summer. The carcases of animals which in most 

 other countries, summer or winter, would soon be picked clean by beasts 

 and birds, lie untouched throughout the entire summer. With the 

 first approach of cold, down come the wolves, foxes, dogs, vultures and 

 all the world of nature's scavengers, and the carcase which has lain so 

 long untouched disappears as if by magic ; even the bare bones dis- 

 appear, carried off by the majestic Lammergeier, which swoops down on 

 them the moment the more vulgar crowd have left them. Unlike the 

 summer, no sooner does a beast die or fall a victim to the sportman's 

 bullet in the winter than down come the vultures on to it, and if of small 

 size it may be carried off before his very eyes before the sportsmen can 

 get up to it. Many a dispute one sees between the first arrivals. I 

 once saw a lordly Griffon Vulture ( Gyps himalayanus) alight on the 

 carcase of a cow, followed by some crows, the common Jungle Crow 

 (Corvus macrorhynchus) . One would have thought the meal sufficient 

 for all, but the crows evidently did not think so, for they at once set 

 upon the luckless vulture and turned him out. It only took three 

 crows to eject him, and not content with removing him, they followed 

 him in the air taking pocks at him fron) behind to accelerate his move- 



