200 



200 to 1200 feet above the surrounding plain, few, if any (except Mount Aboo), much exceeding 

 in height the Taragurh Hill at Ajmere, which is said to have an elevation of 2900 feet. This 

 chain, so far as I am acquainted with it, is composed almost exclusively of metamorphic rocks, — 

 granite, greenstone, micaceous schists, syenite, and quartz, with various altered sandstones, being 

 the characteristic minerals, though patches of limestone and marble are quarried more or less in 

 many localities. Very bare, bleak in winter and burning in summer, these hills, often conveying 

 the idea of huge barrows of rocky debris, can boast scarcely any vegetation, except multitudes of 

 huge candelabra-like, many-thorned, succulent Euphorbice, and a more or less sparse growth of 

 lanky ghost-like grass, which always appears withered and dead. Wrapt in the hues of distance, 

 these rugged and often very fantastically shaped hills and groups of hillocks afford the most 

 beautiful backgrounds to every view, and give an inexpressible charm to every landscape, 

 especially to those fresh from the rich but unvaryingly level plains of the rest of Upper India. 

 Seen, however, close at hand they are bare, and in many cases desolate to a degree ; and they 

 are, in their sameness and churlish ruggedness, as wearying and discouraging to the traveller as 

 they are, with rare exceptions, unproductive to the ornithologist. A few pairs of the beautiful 

 Banded Rock-Grouse (Pterocles fasciatus), of the Jugger Falcon (Falco juggur), of the Brown 

 Bock-Chat (Cercomela fusca), and of the Bed- winged Bush-Lark (Mir of r a erythroptera), with 

 large companies of the Long-billed Vulture (Gyps indicus), all of which breed here, together 

 with numbers of the Striolated Bunting, almost complete the catalogue of the resident avifauna, 

 supplemented during the cold season by little flocks of Hutton's and Stewart's Buntings (Emberiza 

 huttoni and E. stewarti) and solitary individuals of our well-known Pipit (undistinguishable from 

 Pipastes arboreus of Europe), the Brown Rock-Pipit (Corydalla griseorufescens, nobis), and the 

 Common Kestrel (Tinnunculus alaudarius). 



" Dreary and uninteresting as they seem to us, these great stoneheaps (the best possible 

 name for many of them) are the homes par excellence of the Striolated Bunting. Everywhere a 

 dwarf withered grass peeps out in yellow tufts amongst the particoloured fragments, and fur- 

 nishes the tiny seeds which, so far as my observations both in April and November go, constitute 

 the sole food of this species. Fearless, cheerful, active little birds, they flit rapidly up and down 

 the rocky slopes, sportively chasing each other like children at play, or, pausing motionless for 

 several minutes, sun themselves on some grey rock's broad bosom. But it is on the hills and 

 amidst the rocks that they are here alone found. Scarcely a hundred feet below, the valley may 

 stretch away all soft and green into the far distance, rich crops may wave, or the feathery golden- 

 blossomed acacias smile invitations irresistible to Warblers and White-throats ; but our little 

 Bunting is a mountaineer, and, disdaining Capuan luxuries, clings to his much loved though 

 inhospitable-looking alps. It is pleasant to watch a pair running and hopping about on the 

 ground, pecking over stones and in amongst the stunted grass, and then flying to the topmost 

 shoot of some many-branched Euphorbia hard by, where the female sits and plumes and suns 

 herself, while the male alongside pours out his little feeble song. On a sudden both are off with 

 a dart, twisting and turning in jerky flights, and dropping unexpectedly, as if shot, out of sight 

 amidst rocks and grass. Towards the base of Taragurh some bygone chieftain (for the ' Fort of 

 Staro ' was once the stronghold of mighty men) has built a massive masonry dam across the bed 

 of what, during the rainy season, may be a torrent, but now in the winter is only a tiny rill. 



