MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 1161 



only to be found in this " dhand " and never in the main river. As sport 

 had hitherto been rather poor, I resolved to go and look up these muggers, 

 though I was sceptical of their existence. 



We arrived at last at about 4-30 p. m. at the place where the guide 

 said that the muggers were most often seen. The "dhand" here was' 

 some 30 yards broad with banks from 10 to 15 feet high covered here and 

 there with clumps of long grass and small bushes. The water subse- 

 quently proved to be very deep, the banks seeming almost vertical except 

 at certain well-marked fords. I was gazing at what looked like a piece 

 of driftwood in the water, when it slowly sank and re-appeared a few yards 

 further on, proving the existence of one mugger, anyway. Shortly 

 afterwards the shikari spotted one on the bank opposite vis. He was lying 

 in the middle of some rushes, and was so well hidden that I could scarcely 

 make out anything without my glasses, although the distance was only 

 about 40 yards. The mugger did not move in the slightest, while we were 

 watching him and appeared to be quite used to men, and I finally shot 

 him through the neck. A local fisherman, who was with us, volunteered to 

 swim across and tow the mugger back, a feat which he performed without 

 any difficulty, although there were certainly more muggers in the water 

 close by. The mugger proved to be a well-conditioned little beast of 

 5 feet 6 inches with a girth of 24f inches, and on skinning him we found him 

 to be covered with fat. Natives keep this fat for use as an embrocation, 

 and we took twice as much of this off him as off any fisheater I have ever 

 shot. The reason for this is that the stream swarms with various sorts of 

 fish, moving up to 15 lbs. or more, and these evidently provide the muggers 

 with an easy and inexhaustible supply of food. 



Although I stayed at this place until the following afternoon, I did not 

 succeed in bagging another, though I killed a fish-eater of about 11 feet, 

 and also blew up the head of a mugger of quite 10 feet, which rose to the 

 surface of the water close to me. Neither of these corpses were retrieved. 

 It was apparently very lucky to find the small one out on the bank, as the 

 people told me that the broad-fronted muggers seldom came out to bask, 

 though they often float on the top of the water. I very much regret that 

 I did not count the teeth of this crocodile, so the question of the genus 

 being palustris or porosus still remains to be decided. The local name for 

 the broad-snouted mugger, by the way, is ("baghori") Urdu &)&[■> the 

 fish-eater being known as "maggar," maggar mach or "sansar" usually the 

 latter. " Grharial," the native name attributed to Gavialus gangeticus in 

 the Indian Field Shikar Book, is unknown on the Indus, and I have yet to 

 meet a native who understands it. 



Can anyone solve the problem of how these crocodiles got into that 

 "dhand? " They are unknown in the main stream, although the "dhand" 



