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Birds of Kohat and Kurram. 
Where water is easily brought on to the land, as is the 
case in the plains around Kohat and Lachi and in the 
Kurram, Hangu, and Teri Valleys, green oases of cultivation 
relieve the general barrenness. A feature of the cultivation 
around Kohat and in the Miranzai Valley consists of the 
beautiful orchards of Mulberry, Peach, Plum, Fig, and Vine 
which abound, and are supplemented, in the stonier parts, 
by groves of wild Olive-trees. The crops consist mainly of 
wheat ; but Indian corn, barley, millet, cotton, and sugar¬ 
cane are also grown, and around Bangu, Thall, and in the 
Kurram Valley, rice. Immediately south of the station of 
Kohat the Government grass-farm, of about 300 acres, 
possesses many attractions for birds on migration, and, after 
irrigation, is not a bad place to observe Waders : even Duck 
and Snipe have been shot on it. The climate is very dry. 
As regards temperature : in the plains of Kohat the winter 
might be compared to that of the south of France, but the 
summer is decidedly hotter and probably most nearly 
approximates to that of Egypt. In the Kurram Valley 
temperatures are much lower, and the climate of Upper 
Kurram must be somewhat similar, both in summer and in 
winter, to that of Northern Germany. 
Ornithologically speaking, this corner of the Palmarctic 
Region * has hitherto been little worked. With the exception 
* Dresser in the preface to his ‘ Manual of Palsearctic Birds ’ does not 
clearly define the Palsearctic boundary in this locality, and by omitting 
all reference to the plains of India would seem to imply that Kohat 
belongs to the Indian Subregion. On the other hand, Blanford in his 
1 Distribution of Vertebrate Animals in India’ assigns the plains of the 
Punjab to the Palaearctic Region. Professor Newton, however, in his 
article on “ Birds ” in the ‘ Encyclopaedia Britannica,’ remarks that if 
Baluchistan is to be excluded from the Palaearctic Region, “ then the line 
of demarcation must run inland and so continue between that land 
and Afghanistan till ascending the right bank of the Indus it turns the 
shoulder of the Great Snowy range.” The italics are mine, and I take 
this to mean that the line of demarcation strikes the Indus at a point 
in prolongation eastward of the boundary-line between Afghanistan and 
Baluchistan, i. e. somewhere in the vicinity of Dera Ghazi Khan. If this 
is the correct interpretation of Newton’s views then the ornithology of 
N.W. India strongly supports them. 
SER. IX.—VOL. III. 
II 
