466 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HLST. SOCLETY, Vol. XXII. 



present in the north-eastern part, or Jhalawad Prant of the Kathia- 

 war Peninsula, and if there were space for describing them, there 

 are several rather interesting features connected with cattle-breeding 

 which seem to be associated with the physical configuration of the 

 country, which in turn results, no doubt, from the original influence 

 of the Indus outflow and of the tidal creeks from which the sea 

 has, in later times, receded. For example, experience in the last 

 famine, in connection with cattle relief, gave one result of great 

 interest. The cattle hailing from Jhalawad and Northern Gujarat, 

 when driven for pasture to the south of Kathiawar, where grass, 

 in the Gir forest, was plentiful, suffered very severely. Oasvialties 

 were indeed as numerous among those which got plenty of Gir 

 grass to eat as among those which remained behind to pick up 

 what they could in their native plains. On the other hand, cattle 

 from Southern Gujarat did very fairly well and found the fodder 

 which grew in the Gir not ill-adapted to their constitution. It 

 was already a fact known from the experience of the preceding 

 famine that cattle from the districts north to the Narbada did not 

 thrive upon the fodder growing to the south of that river and the 

 inference from the second experience is that there is some alimen- 

 tary property in the grass which grows on the salt lands in Northern 

 Gujarat which has become necessary for the proper sustenance of the 

 big-boned cattle which are there indigenous. It is, however, im- 

 possible in the space of this brief survey to enter upon a longer 

 discussion of the lessons to be learnt from the cattle famine of tM^o 

 years back. 



It is of interest, in connection with the mammal survey of this 

 part of India, to note, as briefly as possible, the extraordinary 

 diversity of human races which are either present in Khathiawar 

 or have left their traces upon the Province. What precisely 

 we re the original inhabitants it is now almost impossible to tell , 

 but that they were not very alien to the Bhils, who were indi- 

 genous in the Aravallis and the Vindhyas may perhaps be inferred 

 from the existence in the Province, in some nximbers, of outcasts 

 calling themselves Bhils. On the other hand, it is, of course, equally 

 possible that these, who are in general, lighter skinned than the Bhils 

 of Malwa and Mewar, are only immigrants of comparativelj?' recent 

 date. However that may be, we have, at all events, fair historical 

 evidence that Kathiawar was the point of arrival in India of at least 

 one of the solar races of the Rajputs, and that Valabhipura, now 

 known as Vala, was a thriving and important city, probably founded 

 and built by a highly civilized race of Aryans, is at all events one of 

 the usual postulates in connection with Kathiawar history. Again, 

 from a very early time, the Coast of Kathiawar, though it presents 

 to-day few facilities in the way of harbourage for large shipping, was 

 the point of objective for numerous piratical invasions from Arabia 



