584 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XIV 



ploughed up and sown with wheat and barley, must be sufBcient to destroy the 

 food-supplies altogether. It is probable that a couple of good years will do 

 much to remedy this, but it will, I think, require more than one to do so. 



As regards the feeding grounds for the ducks the same holds good. The 

 weeds or shell-fish on which the various species feed, have in most places 

 been entirely destroye.d, and here again I fear we may have to wait for more 

 than one year before the status quo ante is restored. 



The case with quail is different. I have never seen better quail ground 

 than during the past two years and this complete failure of the quail to ap- 

 pear must be put down to other causes which I shall touch on later. 



So much for the conditioo of Gujarat as regards food-supply. Now as to 

 other factors which bear on the case. In the first place cceteris paribus, what 

 birds do visit Gujarat ? This is a point on which it is impossible to speak 

 with certainty, but common sense, which is to a great extent backed by the 

 experience of the last two years, leads me to feel pretty confident that the 

 usual course of event is, that the same birds who have spent a cold weather in 

 any given feeding ground return there with their young broods after the 

 breeding season. 



Another factor to be borne in mind is that in an ordinary year an 

 enormously high percentage of birds perish on the northern journey. 

 It would not be too much to say judging from the experience of Seebhom 

 and other naturalists, that half of those who start back, perish on the way. 



This is probably more the case with some birds than with others — for in- 

 stance, quail are probably far greater sufferers in this way than are the mem- 

 bers of the duck tribe and it is, I think, to this, and to the fact that probably 

 none of the regular Gujarat stock of quail survived the first famine year, that 

 the complete failure of quail during the last two years can be traced. 



It is a well-known fact, moreover, that all birds are in the very pink of 

 condition before they start, many species having a new set of feathers for 

 the occasion. 



With the above facts before us we can easily see that the result of a year 

 in which the usual feeding grounds of any large class of birds failed, would 

 be that those who passed on to other feeding grounds would return to these 

 new feeding grounds the following year, and that those who failed to so pass 

 on would never be fit to face the return journey to their breeding grounds ; 

 the result in either case would be, as the event has proved, that few or no birds, 

 would come back to the famine-stricken province the next year. 



Another result of the heavy mortality among any species who are in the 

 habit of visiting any one feeding ground in large numbers, will be that the 

 food-supply at the hreeding ground will be improved for those who do get 

 back ; now this is perhaps the most important factor of all in bird-life, for 

 the rate at which all animal life increases under favourable surroundings 

 is so enormous that one good year will replace the destruction wrought by 

 several bad years. 



