Ill » W t i GM&S.
Porzana maruetta, Leach.
Vernacular Names.—[ Kheyri, Gurgitri-kheyri (Bengali); Venna mudi-kodi
(Telegu) ; Teertumk, Kabul; ]
R. JERDON tells us that this species is found all over
India, and this, in a certain restricted sense, is perhaps
true ; but it is on the whole so rare a bird, of such
very retiring habits, and so very locally distributed,
that it is very difficult to say to what districts it
does or does not extend.
I only know for certain of its occurrence in various
parts of the Deccan, in Guzerat, and the Panch Mahals, in various
parts of Rajputana, Sind, and the Punjab up to Peshawar
on the west, and again to Kotgarh and Rampur on the north
(both far in the interior of the Himalayas, but in the valley of
the Sutlej), in many parts of the North-Western Provinces
(including Bundelkhand), Oudh, and Bengal, in the Deltaic districts
of which latter, as about Calcutta, it is commoner than in
any other part of the Empire with which I am acquainted.
BIyth states that it has been sent from Aracan.
I cannot ascertain that it has been procured (though very likely
it may have been) in Ceylon or any part of the southern portion
of the Peninsula, in the eastern portions of the Madras
Presidency, Mysore, the Nizam's Territories, the Central Provinces
or Berar. Ball docs not include it in his list " From the Ganges
to the Godavery." Mr. Blewitt, who worked Raipur and Sambalpur
so exhaustively, never procured it there. There seems to be
no record of its occurrence in any part of Bengal east of the
Brahmaputra, or in Assam, and it does notj so far as we know,
extend to either Tenasserim or Pegu.
Here again the evidence is so imperfect that no definite
assertions can be ventured ; but from the limited data available,
it would seem to me that this species, which is purely (I believe)
a cold-weather visitant to India, enters the Empire in two
streams. The one coming from the north from Yarkand and
Eastern Turkestan via Le, sweeps thence down the valleys of the
Jumna and Ganges, and occupies the North-Western Provinces,
Oudh, Bundelkhand and Lower Bengal (and birds of this stream