72 WANDEEINGS OF A 



"whirring wing," he soon helps to fill the game-bag. The 

 gray partridge runs with great rapidity, and unless the cover 

 is low and scanty, is not easily flushed. Its habits are the 

 same as the black species. 



I have before alluded to the spotted hiU-wagtail {Enicfwriis 

 maculatus), one of the most handsome denizens of the moun- 

 tain-stream. It is larger than the pied wagtail, and nearly 

 11 inches in length. The rich white and black colourings 

 are particularly attractive, and its habits so eccentric as to 

 arrest the attention of even the most indifferent observer — 

 now running sprightly along the margin of the torrent, with 

 its forked tail expanded like a beautiful black and white fan ; 

 anon with extended neck and wings it turns its well-marked 

 body from side to side as if on a pivot, until, gathering up its 

 snow-white legs, with an austere screech it shoots rapidly 

 along the windings of the stream. 



There is a species closely aUied, but not by any means so 

 common, and at best a rare bird on the streams of the lesser 

 ranges. It is called the short-tailed fork-tail {Envyuriis 

 ecouleri), about 5 inches in length, with a snow-white fore- 

 head and black upper parts, excepting a white band which 

 _ crosses the back and wings. Its lower parts are also white. 

 This active little creature delights in sporting by the sides of 

 roaring cataracts in wooded situations, and is sometimes seen 

 with the last. 



Nowhere is a storm seen to such advantage as on the lower 

 Himalayan ranges. There is a magnificence and grandeur 

 about the scene perhaps in some ways peculiar to these 

 regions. In April and May the dust-clouds generated on the 

 plains are often carried inwards, and envelope the hiU-stations 

 of Dugshai and Kussoulee in dense and dark masses, so that 

 objects are invisible at a few yards' distance, and the air feels 



