Birds of Kohat and Kurram. 101 
A. spipoletta), which, except in the case of the Shrike, were 
shot out of flocks of similarly coloured birds. Taken as a 
whole, however, the birds of the District are characterized 
by their pale colouring, which is what one would expect from 
the desert nature of the country. 
Many more birds appear to halt in Kohat in the spring 
migration, which continues from February till well into 
June, than in the autumn. This is probably due to the 
configuration of the locality. As will be seen from the map 
(Plate III.), the main Kohat Valley at its junction with the 
Indus is comparatively broad but narrows considerably towards 
the Kurram River, with which it is connected by the Ishkalai, 
an insignificant stream flowing in at Thall. The latter stream 
is probably easily missed by the hosts of migrants passing 
down the Kurram River on southward migration in autumn. 
Major Magrath writes that they migrate down this river in 
the Bannu District in great numbers in August, September, 
and the first half of October. 
In square brackets are added notes on those species met 
with by Major Magrath in Bannu, but not found by us in 
Kohat or in the Kurram Valley, as most of them would be 
likely to occur within our limits. The Bannu District, 
however, exhibits a great contrast to Kohat, consisting as it 
does for the most part of a broad, well-watered, highly 
cultivated plain with a good deal of marsh-land. 
In the following notes, wherever the expression “ we 55 is 
used it refers, of course, to Major Magrath and myself, as 
we worked together. 
The word “ plains 33 is used, as it usually is in India, to 
denote the low country— i. e ., in this case, below about 
3000 feet—as opposed to the main hill-ranges, and not merely 
the flat country, the greater part of Kohat being a maze of 
low hills and ravines. Similarly the word desert 33 is used 
in its wider sense to include stony and not necessarily level 
wastes which cover such a large part of the District (where 
there is very little sandy desert). 
The nomenclature followed is that adopted by Oates and 
Blanford in the f Fauna of British India, Birds, 5 and the 
