30 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA. 



east. A lion was killed in the Sa^'ar district in 1851, 

 and another a few }'ears ago only a few miles from 

 the Jubbulpiir and Alahabad railway. The hoGf-deer 

 {Axis loorcimis) I have never met with in the west 

 of the province, nor is it very numerous even in the 

 east, though very common in the Sal tracts of Northern 

 India. The black partridge (Francolinus vulgaris) of 

 Northern India does not extend into these provinces 

 at all, its place being taken by the painted partridge 

 {F. pictus), a very closely allied species. The great 

 imperial pigeon of Southern India does not, I think, cross 

 the Narbadd, to the north, thou2;h not uncommon in 

 the hio^her forests to the south of that river. Scientific 

 research amon^x the minor forms of animal and vec^etable 

 life (for which I have had neither the time nor the 

 knowledge) may possibly elicit many confirmations of 

 tbe law of distribution I have thus roughly stated from 

 observations that have presented themselves to me as 

 a forester and a sportsman. 



I need here only indicate another matter in connec- 

 tion with this subject. It has already been stated that 

 a tribe called Korkiis, closely connected with what is 

 called the Kolarian stock, which is represented by 

 the Kols and Sdntals of Bengal, is found embedded 

 among the Gonds of these central hills. Now the 

 commencement of the range of this tribe precisely 

 agrees with the isolated patch of the Sal forest in 

 the Denwa valley ; and their nearest relatives of the 

 same stock are the Kols of the country to the north 

 of Mandld, where the Sd-l forest again commences. Thus 

 we have an outlier of the human tribes of Eastern 

 India existing along wdth an outlier of its vegetable 

 and animal forms, and the country between the whole 



