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am in such a delightful state of ignorance as to what birds are scarce 
and which well-known, that I skin but few; and no one in the Pre- 
sidency understands or cares the least for them; and as for books, 
the word “ornithology” is not comprehended. The first numbers 
of the ‘ Birds of Asia’ would be of very great assistance, as also 
Colonel Sykes’s Catalogue. Your works have been very much ad- 
mired by all who have seen them. 
I shot some of the famed black partridge of Scinde, Francolinus 
vulgaris, which you must know well. It is a very handsome species. 
As a bird for the table, it is excellent, the flesh white and delicate. 
I also shot a very fine plover with a coral-red fleshy expansion ex- 
tending from the eye over the forehead, and meeting on the opposite 
side. The throat and chest are black, legs yellow, eye dark brick- 
red. Whatisit? Ihave its egg. The bird is common enough 
here. Ihave also the egg of an Cidicnemus. What species are 
there of this genus? The egg is very similar to that of our own in 
England. The last day of the voyage great excitement was caused 
by the appearance of alligators in the river. They are common above 
Hyderabad, and ugly green-looking beasts they are, crawling about 
on the sand-banks. But the peculiarities and ¢he lions of the Indus 
are the pul/ah and the pullah-fishers. The pullah is a much-esteemed 
fish, said to be found only in the Indus: it is something like the 
grey mullet in appearance, and in taste little better than a mackerel, 
but is thought a great deal of. Every one eats pullah. It is caught 
in the following manner, by a particular caste of natives brought up 
to the business. A large earthen-vessel is pro- 
cured, shaped like a lentil-seed, with an aperture 
at the top; the vessel is about a yard in diameter, 
and half a yard deep, the orifice 8 inches across. 
This of course floats on the water, and will sustain 
a considerable weight. Pushing it off from the 
side, the fisherman throws himself on his belly across it, and so 
closes the aperture with his body, thus forming a kind of boat, which 
is propelled by the motions of the arms and legs, as in swimming. 
This buoys him up on the rapid stream, and prevents his being 
swallowed up by the eddies of the river, and also enables him to use 
his net, which is stretched across a kind of fork attached to the end 
of along pole. This machine is held perpendicularly in the water, 
the ends of the fork touching the bottom. The current causes the 
net to bag and spread out as the man floats on his earthen pot down- 
