Syrrhaptes tibetanus, Gould.
Vernacular Names.—[Kuk, Ladak\
T is in the semi-desert Alpine tracts of Ladak and
the upper portions of the Sutlej valley alone that
this splendid species (so far as is yet known) occurs
within our limits. I have seen numbers on the
Roopshoo plains, about the head of the Pangong
Lake, about the Tso-Mourari, and the Tso-Khar,
and in the country further east towards Hanle.
Biddulph says :—" We first saw this at Chagra (the first halt
above the Pangong) in September, at an elevation of nearly
15,000 feet, where it was common- and tame. We found it
flying about in flocks of from three to ten on the hill side above
the camp. In getting into the Chang Chenmo Valley again,
two days later, we saw it at an elevation of about 15,000
feet.
" On the return journey, this time in June, I found them very
tame and plentiful nearly at the top of the Karakorum Pass,
say at an elevation of fully 18,000 feet."
All these localities are inside the Ladak boundaries, of
which Shahidulla is considered the frontier post.
Wilson writes to me :—" On the water-shed range crossing
from our Mussooree Hills into Thibet, you come across them at
once, and they are common enough from thence eastwards up
the Sutlej Valley."
I do not think that it elsewhere comes within our limits. It
does not occur in Sikhim, nor, so far as I have been able to
learn, in Nepal or Kumaun, but it certainly occurs in Thibet just
north of both these provinces, and Blanford says that the
Governor of Kambajong presented him with four live birds
obtained just north of the Sikhim frontier in Eastern Thibet.
Outside our limits, it probably extends eastwards throughout
the lofty plateaux north of the Himalayas to the borders
of the Chinese Province of Kansu, as Prjevalski obtained it
at the Kokonor ; probably it extends equally westwards in
suitable high regions. Just outside the Ladak frontier, and
the range through which the Karakorum leads, Cayley shot
some near Kizil-jilga on the upper Kara Kash. Other's were
seen some 20 miles south of Malik Shah, and Biddulph saw