12 FIRST LIST OF THE BIRDS OF THE SOUTH KONKAN. 



So you will break up your stud of greyhounds as soon as 

 ever you are in orders for the South Konkan. 



If your weather-eye is open you will also see that a good 

 rifle would be rather an unnecessary embarrassment, on the 

 summit of the Ghats, a day's journey from any camp in 

 Ratnagiri or Savant Vadi ; there are of course a few localities 

 where bears, sambhar, and an occasional bison may be seen j 

 but the lowlands of the South Konkan hold no big game, 

 and very little small. A few panthers rove about the country, 

 and kill goats and dogs, and lie up by day in the thick temple 

 groves, but they are hard to find, and the natives are unused 

 to marking and tracking. Hysenas are found on the rocky 

 slopes of the highest hills, and pig are plentiful in one or 

 two localities on the hills, which overhang the creeks, where 

 the jungle is still moderately thick, and in the hot weather 

 habitually come down from the hills at low tide to wallow in 

 the mangrove swamps. Four-horned antelope (Tetraceros 

 quadricornis) range from coast to Ghats in suitable places, 

 preferring open country and thin scrub to thick jungle, while 

 barking deer (Cervulus mantjac or vaginalis) are found in the 

 denser ravines and thickets at the base of the Ghats. Otters 

 are plentiful on the coast and up the tidal creeks. Hares are 

 scarce, and not worth the trouble of beating for. 



But though the larger mammalia are badly represented, 

 reptiles of all kinds, from Grocodilus palustris to Calotes versi- 

 color, are plentiful. Ratnagiri has the unenviable reputation 

 of being the snakiest place in the Bombay presidency, not 

 so much for the variety of species found there, as for the 

 excessive abundance of that wicked little Viper (Echis 

 carinata) . 



In 1862, within eight days, (December 2nd to 10th) 115,921 

 nominally venomous snakes, at least 90 per cent, of which 

 were Echis carinata, were destroyed at a reward of two 

 auuas a snake, and during the rainy months they are still more 

 plentiful, or, to speak more correctly, more often seen. In 

 October last, within ten days, upwards of a thousand of these 

 little pests were brought to me, all alive and kicking, packed 

 in earthen chatties, with loose cocoanut shells for stoppers. 

 But as these are the pages of Stray Feathers and not Stray 

 Scales,'" (au ophiological journal of the future), I will not 

 trouble my readers further on the subject of snakes, but 

 will refer them, if they care for further particulars of Echis 

 carinata, to the Asian of the 28th October 1879. Luckily the 

 " Phiirsas" keep pretty close to their own homes under the large 

 boulders on the rocky hills, and do not often enter human 

 habitations. 



