im mmvtm %mw*mmi 



Tetraogallus tibetanus, Gould. 



Vernacular Names— [Ular, Utar (Kirghiz) ; Hailik (Mongols) ; Cunmo 

 (Tanguts). ] 



HAVE never myself met with this species, but Hender- 

 son, Biddulph and others have shot it on the Chang or 

 Sapti-la between Ley and the head of the Pangong ; 

 Biddulph saw it at the Lanka-la above Chagra ; 

 Stoliczka found it at the head of the Spiti Valley and 

 its smaller tributaries ; I have seen two specimens 

 shot in Kumaun north of and beyond Nanda-devi. 

 Captain Elwes showed me a specimen shot at Phalung in 

 Sikhim,* and Mr. Mandelli has procured many specimens along 

 the northern frontier of that State. We may, therefore, say 

 that the bird just crosses the northern limits of the Empire. 



All our expeditions have found it at the Sanju Pass, and 

 it probably occurs everywhere in sufficiently high and in- 

 hospitable regions on the northern side of the great range 

 dividing India from Tibet, and pretty well throughout this latter, 

 up in the north of which, as also in the Southern Kokonor moun- 

 tains and the Chinese Province of Kansu, Prjevalski met with it. 

 David says it occurs about Moupin. 



It is brought in great numbers into the markets of Yarkand 

 and Kashgar during the cold season, and is said at that time, 

 when the snow has driven them down to more reasonable 

 altitudes, to be common in all the hills that bound Western 

 Turkestan on the south, west and north. If this is correct, they 

 probably occur in the Tian Shan. They may also occur in Eastern 

 Turkestan, and may be what Severtsov mentions as Megalo- 

 perdix nigellii, B. minor ! 



In the summer this species seems to range in the Himalayas 

 to 19,000 feet, as on the Chang-lung-la, and to be very rarely if 



* Although Hodgson nowhere, that I can find, mentions it, and Gray includes it in 

 none of his Catalogues, it probably occurs along the northern frontier of Nepal also, 

 as Mr. Hodgson's natives recorded the measurements of three fresh specimens, said to 

 have been brought in thence, and there is a very good, though cancelled, figure of it 

 amongst his drawings. 



