28 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA. 



probability of his formerly having extended further down the 

 valley than at present, skulls and horns have been found in the 

 upper gravels of the Narbada in no way differing, except in 

 superior size, from those of the existing species. Their greater 

 size is not surprising, as they are not larger than the horns 

 still occasionally met with in Assam, where also the average 

 size is stated to be now rapidly diminishing under the attacks 

 of sportsmen. 



Two other large representatives of the eastern and western 

 faunas, the wild elephant and the Asiatic lion, also appear to 

 have formerly extended far into this region. In modern times, 

 however, the advance of cultivation and the persecutions of 

 the hunter have driven them both almost out of the country 

 I am describing. The former, in the time of Akber (as is 

 ascertained from Abul Fuzl's chronicles), ranged as far west 

 as Asirgarh, but is now confined to the extreme east of the 

 province. Sir Thomas Roe, ambassador from James I. to the 

 Court of the Great Mogul, in the 17th century, speaks of 

 the lion as being then common in the Narbada valley. It is 

 now seldom heard of further east than Eajput^na ; although 

 a solitary specimen sometimes appears in their old haunts 

 further east. A lion was killed in the Sagar district in 1851, 

 and another a few years ago only a few miles from the Jubbul- 

 piir and Alahabad railway. The hog-deer (Axis porcinus), 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 pro- 

 vinces 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 Narbada 

 to the north, though not uncommon in the higher forests to 



