1848.] On the Oology of India. 297 



principle which they had first laid down, determined that the whole of 

 the Cherpa valley and its tributaries belonged to the British Govern- 

 ment ; and that the snowy range on its right bank which feeds all the 

 northern affluents of the Cherpa river should be the boundary between 

 Ladak and the British district of Piti. This same range extends to- 

 wards the east past the southern end of the Chu-Mureri Lake, where 

 it forms the well known boundary between Ladak and the Chinese 

 territory. The Commissioners therefore determined that the boundary 

 between Ladak and Piti should continue from the head of the Cherpa 

 along this same range to the Chinese boundary ; thus including within 

 Piti all the streams which water that district, and giving to Ladak all 

 the streams which water its southern district of Rutchii. 



On the Oology of India : — a Description of the Eggs, also Nests, of 

 several Birds of the plains of India, collected chiefly during 1845* 

 '46. By Captain S. R. Tickell, Civil employ. 



Oology is a part of Ornithology which has either engaged very little 

 attention in India, or has been passed over unattempted from the diffi- 

 culties attending the collection of eggs and nests, — difficulties arising in 

 a measure from the season of the year in which they are chiefly procur- 

 able, but principally because very few birds build and breed in this 

 country, except in the remotest parts of jungles, which are during the 

 rainy season almost inaccessible from the density of vegetation. In the 

 limited collection I have been able to make, native agency has of 

 course been employed ; and to avoid adopting the mistatements, ignorant 

 or wilful, of my " deputy collectors," has cost me no little patience and 

 sundry cross-examinations. Many evil disposed boys have, for instance, 

 brought me the eggs of Mynas over and over again, placed in wonder- 

 ful nests of their own constructing, to be passed off as the produce of 

 the rarest species of birds. An old woman on one occasion paraded 

 some tame ducks' eggs, as just procured from the nest of a species of 

 wild fowl, at that epoch probably busy breeding in Iceland. And 

 several similar attempts at duplicity have occurred, for the sake of 

 enhancing the price, of which the wary Oologist must take good heed. 



In the following description the size of the eggs is expressed by the 



2 Q 



