398 Capt. J. Hayes Lloyd on the 



province of Kattiawar may be described as treeless ; and a 

 traveller entering tbe country by any of the ordinary routes, 

 such as Jooria on the north, Wudwan and Gogo on the east, 

 and Porebundor on the west, might, unless his business or 

 pleasure took him to the southern portion, traverse the country 

 in most directions and finally quit the province without having 

 learnt the existence of any thing in the shape of a forest. He 

 would pass over extensive plains of black soil with intervening 

 tracts of stony sterile undulations and occasional sandy wastes, 

 diversified in parts by low-lying districts, where, during the 

 hot-weather months, the surface is covered with a saline efflor- 

 escence, and the rivers and wells supply only brackish water ; 

 but in the way of trees, a few poor-looking specimens in the 

 neighbourhood of villages, together with an occasional Ficus in 

 the corner of a field, and a garden or grove in the vicinity of 

 some of the large towns, are all that he is likely to meet with. 

 If the traveller happened to be of an ornithological turn of 

 mind, he would, after encountering such birds as Aquila ncevi- 

 oides (fulvescens),A. bonellii,Lanius arenarius, But alls grisola, 

 Ery thro sterna parva, Otocompsa leucotis, Saxicola picata and 

 >S. deserti, Citrinella huttoni, Houbara macqueenii, and Chet- 

 tusia gregaria, probably consider that he had acquired a good 

 idea of the character of the avifauna of Kattiawar, and proceed 

 to describe it as having European and African affinities, with 

 an admixture of desert forms. After a more lengthened resi- 

 dence, however, he could not fail at certain seasons of the 

 year to meet with forms for the occurrence of which, until he 

 had discovered the existence of the Geernar and Geer forests, 

 he would be greatly puzzled to account. In the earlier period 

 of my own experience of the province, the southern districts 

 were unknown to me. I had traversed the country in every 

 other direction and come to the conclusion that Kattiawar, 

 so far as looks went, was not unlike Kuchh, with a very simi- 

 lar avifauna. This opinion was first shaken by meeting with 

 a solitary example of Corvus levaillanti — not that the bird 

 was beyond the limits of its range, but because I had pre- 

 viously only seen it in the neighbourhood of hills and forests, 

 or in districts more or less wooded, and felt puzzled by its oc- 



