MAMMAL SUE VET OF INDIA, 465 



easterly and northerly areas to a congeries of rugged hills, running 

 roughly parallel with the southern and western coasts. 



The most striking feature of the plains portion of the Province is 

 perhaps its treelessness. At what period and how and for what 

 reasons, if there ever existed trees, these were removed or destroyed 

 is not precisely known, but at the present day, if a cultivator is 

 asked why there is such a paucity of trees in the Province, he will 

 reply that they are not good for cultivation, because they harbour 

 birds which eat the crops ; and the proposition is so far true that, 

 save for acjuatic and other game-birds, chiefly of a migrator}'- character, 

 the Province is singular^ poor in bird-life. That this absence of 

 trees is a result of human destructiveness, is rendered probable by 

 the knowledge we have that the lion, which used to be common 

 throughout portions of Rajputana, and has only become extinct 

 at Abu within the last half century, has now disappeared, except 

 in the sole remaining tract of forest in the Province, the Gir. 

 The level plains of Jhalawad in the north-east and east and of 

 Halar in the north of the Province, are roamed over now by 

 considerable herds of black buck, and in the rougher, wilder portions 

 chinkara are plentiful. Bordering on the Run, which again is 

 presumably a former mouth of the Indus, and on the islands in it — 

 desolate wastes of salt-land — are found the Indian wild ass, while 

 wolves follow the numerous flocks which graze nearly all over the 

 apparently barren stretches of this part of the Province. 



The Gir Forest in the south-west and the Bardar hills in the 

 north-westerly corner of the Province are the only localities which 

 still harbour wild jungle-life. Mention has already been made of 

 the lions of the Gir which, it is to be feared, must, owing to the 

 encroachments of cultivation and the alreadj^ straitened area within 

 which they can roam, shortlj^- disappear ; and in addition to these 

 are found in the hilly tracts numerous panther and samber, pig 

 and chital. 



The Province of Kathiawar is almost the most northerlj^ part 

 of Western India which is directly benefited by the rainfall con- 

 nected with the south-west monsoon. It is true that in Outch to 

 the north they expect a rainfall averaging on the Coast not much 

 less than that which falls in Kathiawar, but it is far less regular in 

 its appearance in Outch, and the State of which His Highness the 

 Pao is the Ruler, is consequentl}^ less dependant upon agriculture 

 than is Kathiawar. The desert-like appearance of the latter becomes, 

 on the other side of the Run, desert in grim reality, and though the 

 north-eastern portion of the Pao's dominions boasts a celebrated 

 breed of cattle which grazes upon the salty grass-produce which 

 borders on the Run, in the direction of Suigam, those territories 

 approximate in their general desolate appearance to the desert of 

 Marwar and Thar and Parkar. This climatic feature, indeed, is also 



