FIRST LIST OF THE BIRDS OF TIIE SOUTH KONKAN. 15 



Kites and Shikras. Outside these shady villages the coast lino 

 is bare and rugged, and the trees are few and far between, 

 though here and there, where a sprinkling of crumbling red 

 earth contrasts with the weather-beaten rocks, you see patches 

 of stunted brushwood. 



The headlands which guard the approaches to the larger rivers 

 are uniformly crowned, as indeed are all the larger hills and 

 coigns of vantage inland, with the ruins of old Maratha forts. 

 There are as many of these grand old strongholds, as there are 

 days in the year. The majority were either built, restored, or 

 added to by the great Sivaji Bhonsle, two hundred odd years ago. 

 Many have interesting histories attached to them, and some, such 

 as Suvamdurg (the golden fort) and Vijaydurg, are closely 

 associated with British deeds of prowess in old times when the 

 coast was overrun by the piratical Grabs and Gallivats of the 

 Angrias and the Savants of Vadi. Two of these forts, Suvamdurg 

 off Harnai, and Sindhudurg off Malvan, are built on rocky 

 islands separated from the mainland by narrow channels. 



Between Malvau and Vengorla are a number of rocks and reefs 

 of all sizes, called the Burnt Islands, the uheos queimados of 

 the Portuguese, one of which, lying some six miles from the 

 nearest mainland, is celebrated as a breeding haunt of Collocalia 

 unieolor. Swallows, Swifts, and Crag Martins (H. erythropygia, 

 C. affinis, and P. coneolor) are abundant about all the rocky 

 headlands at the base of the cliffs, and travelling up the more 

 open portions of the coast, you see, in addition to the usual 

 shore birds, Gulls and Terns, behind almost every other boulder 

 a Thamnobia fulicata and an occasional Blue Rock Thrush, 

 while every now and then a grand old Sea Eagle (Haliaetus 

 leucogaster) beats up the shore, and with a mighty rush 

 plunges on an unsuspecting Hydrophis. Brahminy Kites, too, 

 are common about all the coast villages, and are skilful crab- 

 catchers and occasionally, but not often, you may see a Peri- 

 grine. 



Inland Tracts. — Above the beach, at the summit of the cliffs, 

 you will see an irregular, but withal well-defined belt, of later- 

 ite, running parallel to the coast, and stretching inland for 

 from fifteen to twenty or more miles. This part of the country 

 is a series of raised peaks and plateaus, capped with sheets and 

 boulders of the black slag-like Konkan laterite, and cut through 

 by innumerable streams and watercourses. The dismal barren- 

 ness of the uplands is, in great part, redeemed by the well-wooded 

 fertile valleys which divide the table lands. Some of these 

 ravines are mere rocky beds of mountain torrents, dry, save in 

 the monsoon ; but through the larger valleys wind the tidal 

 rivers, leaving on their banks rich beds of alluvial silt for rice 



