36 
Some Punjab River Birds. 
ways of England. The Punjab river bed is very wide, gener- 
ally somewhere about a mile in breadth more or less, and in 
this bed the river frequently changes its course from year 
to year, never occupying the Avhole area, even when in full 
flood from the melting snows and rains of the Himalayas. 
The difference in volume of the water l>etween the full river 
in tiood and the mere stream of the cold weather is very great ; 
in one case the river may be a rushing torrent half a mile 
wide; in the other a few separate channels, easily to be crossed 
by wading. And even when the river keeps to one course 
the changes in the sandbanks and the direction of the current,' 
are most bewildering. 
The dry land in the river bed may be divided roughly 
into two types; firstly there is the portion nearly connected 
with the river and usually under water at some time of the 
year. This appears either as sand -banks in the middle of the 
various water channels or as a sand area bordering on the 
water; in either case it consists of dry loose sand, often with 
a hard upper crust due to deposits of mud, covered with a 
varying amount of tamarisk shoots or scrub and a few other 
plants. This area is chosen as the nesting place of hundreds 
of Terns and Plovers 
The second type of land is that which has not been 
submerged by the river for a number of years. It consi.sts 
of sandy soil, Avhich if not cultivated, as it often is, in patches, 
is usually covered Avith a more or less thick grass jungle, 
which becomes grazed or cut down as the season passes. Such 
ground is the favourite nesting one of various Tjarks, Pipits, 
and Chats, and more especially of the Streaked Wren Warb- 
ler, Prinia lepida. 
How well I remember my first introduction to the 
nesting possibilities of such a river-bed, when T had only 
been out in India a month or two. It was at the end of 
March, and Avandering along the sands I saw .some Great Stone 
Plovers — a relatiA'c of the Norfolk Plover. Meeting a native 
Shikari I pointed the birds out to him, and promised "buk- 
hshesh " if he found their nest and shewed it to me; but it 
appeared a hopeless quest amongst all those acres of level 
sand. The man agreed, and turned up a day or two later 
Avith the information that he had found the nest: so T agreed 
