THE Z00 OGIST. 
THIRD SERIES. 
Vou. X.] NOVEMBER, 1886. [No. 119. 
A SIND LAKE. 
By Cart. E. F. Becuer, R.A., F.Z.S. 
SInD, as viewed on the map and as seen from the sea on 
approaching Karachi, has a most unpromising appearance; in the 
former case the Desert of Sind is written, and in the latter an 
apparent desert of deserts is seen, the few houses of Clifton, 
surrounded by sand-hills, giving a greater aspect of desolation 
than if no signs of habitation were visible; but along the banks 
of the Indus which traverses the whole length of Sind are 
numerous jhils and lakes abounding in wildfowl. 
The Manchar Lake, however, though communicating with 
the Indus, does not owe its existence entirely to that river; it is 
about seven miles long and four broad; on one side are high barren 
hills of bare rock, and on the other an open cultivated plain 
stretching to the Indus, which is distant about eight or nine miles. 
The Lake itself is for the most part shallow, and covered with 
water-weed ; the water is like crystal, and, looking down on the 
subaqueous forest through the clear-shallow medium, brightened 
by the usual unclouded sun, it has always reminded me of a most 
perfect microscopical illumination of some opaque object, a beauty 
which a microscopist will understand. The surface of the Lake 
teems with waterfowl. Mr. A. O. Hume says, with respect to the 
Coots :—“I believe they would have to be counted not by 
thousands, but by tens of thousands. ..... In no part of the 
world have I ever seen such incredible multitudes of Coots as are 
met with in Sind.’ This was written in 1873; but since that 
_ ZOOLOGIST.—NOVEMBER, 1886. 2K 
