20 FIRST LIST OF THE BIRDS OF THE SOUTH KONKAN, 



tinnous belts of evergreen forests, and feel yourself fairly 

 amongst the mountain fauna. 



A large area of the western slopes, inaccessible as they seem, 

 is annually under cultivation, and burnt hill sides and withered 

 saplings reveals, but too clearly, the ruthless work of axe and fire. 

 But above all this amongst forests of Anjan (Memecylon edule), 

 Jambuls {Eugenia jambolana and salicifolia) , Jasund (Antiaris 

 saccidord), Gela [Randia dume torum) , Hirda (Terminalia chebula), 

 "Wild Jack (Artocarpus hirsuta) and other evergreens, you are 

 alone with nature, in a very pleasant kind of way. And when 

 you gaze from some giddy precipice on the steamy littoral below 

 you, with its endless confusion of bare brown hills, stretching 

 mistily to the west, its fire blackened fields, and its rivers like 

 tangled threads ; and when a glowing sunset reveals the far 

 ocean as a faint streak in the dim horizon, and bathes the 

 hills in liquid violet, you admire the grandeur of the scene, 

 but devoutly hope, especially if the hot weather has set in, that 

 you may never never return to that abyss of moistened heat 

 below. 



The change from the languor of the Konkan to the bracing 

 air of the Western Ghats is, in fact, " too awfully jolly." The 

 scenery of the Ghat range, as you climb the crests of any of 

 the passes, is glorious, and with trailing mosses and orchids 

 overhead, and Braehen and silver fern under your feet, you feel, 

 if you are not a discontented misanthrope, with a liver, or a 

 grievance, an ecstacy of exhilaration. 



On the other hand I must confess that as regards birds I 

 have always been more or less disappointed in my rambles in 

 the higher Ghat ranges. I could name at least a dozen species 

 which I know to occur in the Western Ghats, but of which, time 

 after time, I have failed to get the slightest glimpse. Perhaps 

 one expects too much both in variety and abundance of species, 

 but it is disappointing when you are particularly anxious to 

 get a Harpactes fasciatus, a Dendrophila frontalis, a XantJw- 

 Itema rnalabarica, a Uemicercus canente, or an Irena puella, to 

 see nothing but a few parties of Pectoris sinensis and Alcippe 

 poiocephala, and many Pratincola caprata and other common 

 species which you need not have climbed so high to get. 



The changes, in both animal and vegetable forms is, in fact, 

 not nearly so great as you approach the higher elevations of the 

 Ghats from the west or Konkan side, as from the east or Deccan 

 side. There are very few species characteristic of the Ghat 

 region which are not found on the western slopes, as well as on 

 the crest of the range ; and many of these birds, as the locali- 

 ties entered in my list will shew, descend the Ghats and appear 

 in wooded tracts near the sea. On the other hand very few, 



