Tetraogallus himalayensis, O. B. Gray.
Vernacular Names.—[Kulla, Lupu, Baera, Western Nepal; Huin-wal, Kumaun ;
Jer-moonal, Hills north of Mussooree ; Lccp, Aula; Kubuk, Gourkagu,
Kashmir; Kauk-i-durra, Afghanistan; Kabk-i-daveh, Persia; Utar, Ular,
Turhislan.]
]HE Himalayan Snow-Cock is found in suitable localities
throughout the Himalayas from the eastern
portions of Kumaun to Hazara, and probably considerably
further west in Afghanistan. Writing
from Gilghit, Captain Biddulph tells me that this
is one of the few game birds that he had met with
west of the Indus.
It does not enter Nepal; Hodgson records that the only
specimens he obtained were shot in the hills of Kumaun,
close under the perpetual snows, and that it is not met with
in Nepal.
Hutton recorded that a species of Snow-Cock, which he
identified with this, was sometimes brought into the market at
Kabul, and that he had four live ones at Candahar. I do not
know that any Afghan specimens have since been examined,
and at that time the several species had not been generally
discriminated ; but I do not myself doubt that it is the present
species that occurs in Northern Afghanistan.
Outside our limits it occurs on the northern flanks of the
Kuen-luen, as at the Sanju Pass, right away to the Pamir, and
Biddulph met with it, about all the passes en route to Wakhan,
and on the Pamir ridges, and at the top of the Baroghil Pass
on the Hindoo Koosh.
The plains of Yarkand are, of course, too low for this species ;
but great numbers are brought into Kashgar during the
winter of a pale race (not, I think, specifically separable), which
Scully says come from the hills near Kugiar, which may be
styled northern outliers of the Kuen-luen, but wdiich Biddulph
believes come also from the Tian-Shan.
It is impossible to be certain what species of this genus
Severtsov (and he records two) obtained in Western Turkestan,
but to judge from the names he uses, himalayensis was not
amongst them.