9<6 A LAKE IN OODEYPORE. 



At Kunkrowlee there were two such outlets, the more impor- 

 tant of which, perhaps 500 yards in length, is blocked by a ma- 

 sonry and earthwork dam, 120 feet high in the centre, double this 

 in width, and entirely faced on the lake side with endless symme- 

 trical flights of steps, terraces and piers, adorned with beautiful 

 many-pillared summer houses, ornamental gateways and the like, 

 all constructed entirely of white marble, truly squared and laid, 

 and, in the case of the summer houses and gateways, elaborately 

 and beautifully carved. 



At either end of the dam rise to a height of two or three hun- 

 dred feet, dark rocky hillocks, sparsely besprinkled with dwarf 

 trees and stunted bushes, and crowned with picturesque but ruined 

 castles. Right and left, as far as the eye can reach, stretch the 

 blue waters of the placid lake, while opposite, in the far dis- 

 tance, a thin ill-defined hazy line indicates the distant shore. 



I spent a week last cold weather in a camp pitched upon this 

 magnificent " bund," (as the dams are called by the Indians), 

 and as we explored the avifauna of the lake pretty thoroughly — 

 and as this represents fairly that of hundreds of other similar 

 large and small sheets of water spread throughout the country — 

 I propose to notice briefly every species that I met with there. 



I do this the more readily that, so far as I know, no list of 

 any kind has ever been given of any birds from Oodeypore. 

 In fact, so inaccessible has this state remained until quite 

 lately to all Europeans, except the particular Political Agent iu 

 charge, that I doubt whether a single specimen has ever been 

 preserved within its limits until I visited it this year. 



I marched through far too small a portion of the state, (only in 

 fact the country lying between the Deysuri Pass of the Aravallis 

 and Kunkrowlee, and this latter and Mhairwarrah) to attempt 

 any general list of the Birds of the State, but the lake itself was 

 fairly exhaustively dealt with. 



The lake is a favourable example of one type of our Indian 

 sheets of water, viz., of that devoid of cover on the banks, and 

 rushes, and the like near the margins ; and this type yields a 

 much smaller number of species than those of the other type 

 where the lake, embosomed in cover, is fringed and skirted and 

 be-greened with belts and islets of rush and reed. 



Here in many places the bare rock goes down steep into 

 the water, and elsewhere the margin is hard bare earth or sand, 

 here and there thinly veiled in short turf. It boasts an island 

 or two it is true, but these are bare and rocky, homes only for 

 Cormorants, though on one of them a single tree that has man- 



i ■ 



aged to struggle up to a respectable altitude, bears a huge nest 

 of Haliaetus leucoryphus, which, when we visited the place early 

 in March, contained two fully-fledged young ones,just able to fly. 



