98 
Major H. A. F. Magrath on the 
of the two papers by Colonel R. H. Rattray published in tbe 
f Journal* of the Bombay Natural History Society, “ Notes 
on Nests taken from March to June at Kohat and Mussoorie, 
North-Western Provinces 33 (vol. x. p. 628), and “ Birds 
Collected and Observed at Thall” (vol. xii. p. 337), 
and a few observations by Major Wardlaw-Ramsay and 
others mentioned in the f Fauna of British India/ I 
know of no contribution to its ornithology *. Neither 
Hume nor Jerdon, Oates nor Blanford, nor others of India’s 
many excellent ornithologists, appear to have visited it. And 
yet it is an important locality, lying as it does in the extreme 
north-west of the Peninsula on one of the great migration- 
highways into India, and at a point on that highway where 
it converges to its narrowest limits. The pre-eminently 
Palcearctic character of the avifauna is most striking. 
Especially is this noticeable in the forms breeding in the 
Upper Kurram, very few of the many subtropical species 
inhabiting the Western Himalayas being found there. From 
the description of the country and from its geographical 
position the predominance of such groups as the Accipitrines, 
Motacillidse, Fringillinse, Emberizinse, and of the desert- 
forms will not be considered surprising. Although un¬ 
doubtedly well represented on migration, the Ducks, Waders, 
and Shore-birds are difficult of observation in Kohat. With 
the exception of the grass-farm, the tank at Dhand-Idl-Khel, 
and some marshy tracts round Thall and Laclii, this District 
is singularly devoid of the moist places beloved of Wild¬ 
fowl and Waders, no streams of any size flowing through 
it. Matters improve in this respect on arriving at the 
Kurram Valley. The river here being taken off for rice- 
cultivation in places along its banks, marshy spots have 
formed, and in the months of March and April, September 
and October, numbers of Wild-fowl and Waders, using this 
* There is only one allusion to Kohat itself in the 1 Fauna of British 
India,’ and that is in connection with the occurrence there of the Red¬ 
wing (Turdus iliacus), recorded by Jerdon on hearsay from Blyth, on 
hearsay from Trotter. After more than two years’ careful observation 
we failed to come across this bird, and I think we may safely say that it 
is not “a regular winter visitant,” if it occurs at all. 
