the woods and warm climate in the Tarim valley would have attracted many to winter here. Their absence, however, may be accounted for by the want of food, for, with the exception of oleaster, and even this in comparatively small quantities, there is not a single bush or herb with edible seeds. Fish, mollusca, and other small animals common to lakes and marshes, are beyond the reach of birds in winter. This is why neither waterfowl nor wading birds[1] winter on the Tarim; birds of prey are also scarce, and only one songster appears in any number in winter, viz. the black-throated thrush[2] (Turdus atrigularis) ; of the Columubidæ we observed three kinds in winter, not on the Tarim, however, but at Chargalyk, forty versts to the S. E. of Lake Kara-buran.
Most of the birds, of which a list will be found in the Appendix, were also observed by us in the valley of the Kaidu and near the town of Korla. Besides these we found Corvus frugilegus, C.
- ↑ In the end of November, however, we met with single specimens of Carbo cormoranus, Anas clypeata, Harelda glacialis, Larus brunneicephalus, but these had probably been left behind by their fellows, and perhaps would have taken their departure later. Besides these in Lob-nor itself, as the natives informed us, Botaurus stellaris, and Gygnus olor occasionally winter amongst the reeds where the frost does not penetrate.
- ↑ [Blanford found the black-throated thrush, common in Báluchistán in winter, as well as in the miserable apologies for gardens at Gwádar, one of the most desolate of inhabited spots on the earth's surface."—(Cf. Eastern Persia, vol. ii., zoology, p. 158.)—M.]
