21 



At Ganjam, once a large civil and military station abandoned, I 

 believe, about 1820, in consequence of an outbreak of fever which 

 has never re- visited the spot, he easily finds shelter in one of the 

 fine old houses now deserted. 



Ten or twelve miles further on is Rumba, near the southern 

 extremity of the lake ; there let him hire two large boats which he 

 can get by the day for a very small sum, put his palankeen into one 

 as a sleeping place for himself, of course he must dine, dress, and 

 in fact live in the open air. His servants and kit are in the other 

 boat. Then let him go forth and slay until his ammunition fails him. 



The little dug-out canoes of the Ooriah fisherman make admir- 

 able substitutes for duck punts and all the more interesting that the 

 unusual weight of the white man, his guns and henchman is sure to 

 disturb the caulking of some leak through which the water pours 

 in a way startling to contemplate ; the big boats or laud being miles 

 off, a rough sea, at least for so frail a craft, being on and some 

 enormous alligators having been seen that morning. 



Our boatman however quietly shoves the canoe to the nearest 

 shoal, which is covered with water birds beyond count or calcula- 

 tion, and, while we are murdering some of them, calmly gets out, 

 clutches from the bottom a handful of sticky black clay and crams 

 it into the leak which it perfectly stops for half an hour or so when 

 the same proceeding has to be repeated. 



No. 17. Lutra aurobrunnea- 



JERDON, No. 101, PAGE 88 ; SMALL HILL OTTER. 



I have on several occasions, near the Karenee Hills, N. E t of 

 -Burmah, seen parties of very small otters, five or six together in 

 the beautiful clear streams that run out of those hills. The beauti- 

 ful Bogatha river, about twenty miles north of Shuay Gheeu, and 

 the Shuay Gheen river itself were two of these streams. I have 

 also seen them when on shooting trips from Tounghoo. 



" Being on each opportunity of seeing them loaded with ball and 

 after large game, I could not shoot one. They seemed to be not 

 more than half the size (if indeed so much) of the common otter, 



