FIRST LIST OF THE BIRDS OF THE SOUTH KONKAN. 3 



The Editor has added four species, three of them from the last 

 batch of skins sent to him, viz. : — 



86.— Ht>tt«<*o fluvicola. 698. — Amadina rubronigra. 



846 quat. — JEgialitis asiatica. 992. — Sterna anaetheta. 



The inclusion of these additional species makes the grand- 

 total of the birds entered in the list 284.* Of these, 266 have 

 already been verified by the Editor. The remaining 18 species 

 have been marked in the list with an asterisk. 



With these necessary explanations I will pass on to the 

 description of the tract to which the paper relates. 



Boundaries. — The narrow strip of west coast littoral, which 

 for the purposes of this Paper I have called the South Konkau,| 

 includes the whole of the 13 ri tisli district of Ratnagiri and the 

 adjoining Native State of Savant Vadi. Its situation with refer- 

 ence to other places on the west coast will be seen by a glance 

 at the accompanying map. Roughly speaking it lies between 

 the 16th and 18th degrees of North Latitude, and the 73rd 

 and 74th degrees of East Longitude. For the last twenty- 

 four miles of its course the Savitri river, one of the Panck 

 Gang a, or five streams, which rise in the sacred village of 

 Mahableshwar, forms the northern boundary of Ratnagiri, 

 separating it from the territory of the Habsi or Sidi Chief of 

 Jinjera. On the west the Indian ocean gives our tract a 

 seaboard of about 160 miles, from Bankot or Fort Victoria on 

 the north to Fort Terekhol, which, on the south, separates 

 it from the Portuguese territory of Goa. Except at the north- 

 east angle, where, for a few miles, the adjoining British district 

 of Kolaba intervenes, the watershed of the Western Ghats, or 

 Sahyadri mountains, forms a well-defined natural boundary 

 on the east throughout the tract. This barrier is overstepped 

 at one point only — the village of Gotne. At the south-east 

 corner the Savant Vadi State intervenes between the Ghats 

 and the Ratnagiri district, leaving the latter a narrow tongue 

 of laud, running down the seaboard and diminishing almost to 

 a point near Fort Terekhol. 



The extreme length of the tract is about 165 miles, and the 

 breadth varies from thirty to forty-five miles. The combined 

 area of Ratnagiri and Savant Vadi is 4,689 square miles, (Rat- 

 nagiri 3,789 square miles, Savant Vadi, 900 square miles). The 

 Ratnagiri district is throughout well populated. The census 

 returns of 1872 shewed the large total of 1,019,136 souls, 

 which gives an average of 268 to the square mile. In Savant 



* When complete the total will doubtless not fall far short of 350.— A. 0. IT. 



t The terms North and South Konkan are sometimes used to denote the parts of the 

 Konkan north and south of Bombay, from the Tapti river to Karwar or Sadasivg.-irh : 

 but the more usually accepted boundaries of the South Konkan are the Savitri river on 

 the north and Terekhol or Tcrracoil, on the Goa frontier, on the south. — Q, V. 



