1921. |] N. ANNANDALE: Fauna of Seistan. 237 
clay on which the village was built. Even in December it contained | 
a considerable quantity of water, which was very foul but ap- 
parently slightly saline. It was used by the villagers for all 
domestic purposes. There was no macroscopic vegetation, but 
much evidence of the presence of a luxuriant growth of microscopic 
algae was present. 
The macroscopic fauna of this pond consisted, so far as we 
were able to discover, of arthropods only. Cladocera, including 
large Daphniids aud Copepoda, were abundant, but circumstances 
did not allow of their collection. The most noteworthy features 
were the wealth of insect life and the large size of some of the 
species present. This was particularly noteworthy in the Rhyn- 
chota, the representatives of which are mostly very small in Seistan. 
As at other places the only families of this order that we could find 
were the Corixidae and the Notonectidae, but in the latter family 
the relatively large and very widely distributed Notonecta glauca, 
which we did not see elsewhere in Seistan, was common, while in 
the Corixidae Macrocorisa geffrovi was also present in large 
numbers. Dipterous larvae were abundant, the most conspicuous 
being an exceptionally large Chironomid, the imagines of which 
were observed hatching out from the pupae on the surface. 
Water-beetles, including large Dytiscidae and Hydrophilidae of 
moderate size, were numerous. 
The only other pools of the sort in which we collected were 
those in the parade-grcund at Nasratabad. They occupied pits 
from which clay had been extracted for brick-making. Their water 
was fouled by the camels and donkeys that frequented them, but 
not or hardly saline. It was six or seven feet deep in places but 
blocked up by a profuse growth of the water-weed Zannichellia 
palustris. Insects, Entomostraca and molluscs were rich in indivi- 
duals, but the number of species was small. No large species of 
Rhy nchota were seen, but several species of Notonectidae and 
Corixidae were abundant. Mr. Distant has identified the following 
forms :—-A nisops fieberi and Corixa affinis. 
Mr. Gurney found the following species of Entomostraca in 
the collections made :—CLADOCERA : Daphnia magna, Simocephalus 
vetulus. COPEPODA: Cyclops strenutus, C. eek OSTRACODA : 
Eucypris clavata, Ilvocypris bradyt, Potamocy pris villosa ; all com- 
mon and widely ‘distributed forms. 
The molluscs present were Limnaea bactriana, Gyraulus ecu- 
phraticus, G. convextusculus and Corbicula Auminalis, all common 
species in Seistan and found, with the exception of the Limnaea, 
in all bodies of water containing luxuriant submerged vegetation 
in the country. L. bactriana, which appears to be mainly a pond 
mollusc, was found only in those pools and in small water-courses 
at the same place. 
FAUNA OF IRRIGATION CHANNELS. 
The small irrigation channels that form a close net-work 
over the whole of the habitable part of Seistan have, at any rate in 
