528 Dr. C. B. Ticehurst on [Ibis, 



Museums. Others wlio contributed notes in a lesser degree 

 about this time to ' Stray Feathers ' were H. E. Barnes, 

 J. A. Murray, Col. Le Messurier, and Sir Evan James. 

 Murray, who was for some time Ctu*ator at Karachi 

 Museum, seemed to have done very little personally in 

 investigating the ornithology of the province, but 'he wrote 

 in 1884: the ' Vertebrate Zoology of Sind,' which as regards 

 birds contains very little information about Sind in it. 

 Barnes, who wrote the ' Birds of the Bombay Presidency,' 

 added nothing in this work to what was already known 

 about Sind, while Butler's ' Catalogue of the Birds of 

 Sind,' etc., is only a bare list brought up to the date it was 

 written (1879). Sint^e 1880 practically nothing except a 

 few^ odd notes in the Journal of the Bombay N. H. Soc. has 

 appeared, but in 1907 an abl)reviated list by E. H. Aitken 

 was incorporated in the Sind ' Gazetteer.' From this work 

 I have abstracted most of the information here given on the 

 physical features. For fuller detail reference should be 

 made to it. 



Fh/sical Features. — Sind has an area of 53,000 sq. miles, 

 and is the most western province of India proper. Except for 

 the Khirthar Range and its outliers, which runs from north 

 to south along its western border, Sind is entirely plain, most 

 of it being recent alluvium from the Indus, or sandy desert in 

 those parts where the influence of the river h:is never been 

 felt. Cultivation is for the most part found in the Indus 

 valley and canal areas, but small amounts may be seen any- 

 where where rain-water can be dammed up or where wells 

 sunk by river-beds can supply a sufficiency. These " rivers,'' 

 of which there are many, are dry except for a short time 

 after heavy rain, but their beds usually contain water dee[) 

 down. The only stream of perennial water besides the 

 Indus is the Habb River, while there are ,<everal hill torrents 

 which, never quite dry, have trickles and pools, such as the 

 Gaj, Narri Nai, Barun, etc. The rainfall is the smallest in 

 India, and only averages 4 to G inches annually (mostly a 

 few days in July or August), but sometimes no rain at all 

 tails tor two or even three years. 



