Porzana akool, Sykes.
Vernacular Names.—t ]
LTHOUGH it doubtless may so occur, I can find no
authentic record of the occurrence of this species
in Ceylon or anywhere in the Peninsula of India
south of about the 20th degree of N. Latitude.
One gathers, from its being included in his list
of the birds of that region, that Colonel Sykes must
have procured it somewhere in the Deccan, but he
gives on localities, and no subsequent observer has again met
with it there.
North of this line it occurs, but for the most part very sparingly,
in suitable localities in certain districts of the Central
Provinces (e.g., Sambalpur north of the Mahanadi, Raipur,
Saugor), in Northern Guzerat, where, during the breeding season,
it is common, in parts of Chota Nagpore, Bengal, the North-
Western Provinces (especially about Jhansi, and in Bundelkhand
generally), Oudh and the Punjab, Cis-Sutlej, at any rate in
Delhi and Gurgaon. It also occurs in the south-eastern
portions of Rajputana (i.e., Bhurtpore,) the Sdmbhar Lake,
Ajmere, Erinpura, and in the immediate neighbourhood of, and
even high up upon, Mount Abu. We know nothing of its
occurrence in North-Western Rajputana, in the trans-Sutlej
portion of the Punjab, or in Sind, nor, I may add (though it
must surely occur in the former), in Kdthiawar or Cutch.
In many districts of the North-Western Provinces it is rare to
a degree, and the same may be said of Bengal, Oudh and the
Central Provinces. Dr. Jerdon says that it is rather common in
Lower Bengal, but it is really, as Blyth had long previously
correctly stated, rare there.
It is most common, in Upper India, in the Dims, Tarais,
and Bhabars that skirt the southern bases of the Himalayas •
but though ascending Mount Abu, it does not appear to ascend
these mountains, as I have never seen a specimen procured at
a greater elevation than two thousand feet ; and I know of its
having been found in the summer, and breeding, in the Dun,
the Kumaun Bhabar and the Sikhim Tarai. Hodgson, I may