JOURNAL 
BOMBAY 
Aatwral History Society. 
No. 1.] “BOMBAY, JANUARY 1886, — LVol. Ill, 
WATERS OF WESTERN INDIA. 
Part V.—SIND. 
(By a Member of the Society.) 
Tuu first and most important point as regards the higher 
vertebrates is that Sind is only a sub-tropical country, and the 
aquatic birds, in particular, belong largely to the Palearctic 
fauna. 
Secondly, we have not here a great river receiving affluents, but 
one which discharges distributaries, so that spawning fish pushing 
up stream do not here leave the Indus, but come to it. 
Thirdly, we have to deal with a rainfall so small and uncertain that 
it is a negligeable quantity. Some researches in which the present 
writer was concerned went far to support a theory conceived by the 
chief of Indian meteorologists, viz. that Upper Sind receives no rain 
from the sea, but only gets its own evaporation partly returned in 
occasional showers. It is certain that the rainfall has greatly 
diminished since powerful and settled governments took the bridling 
of the Indus in hand, and prevented it from forming annually a 
shallow sea, with vast evaporation. My own opinion is that the 
ancient river will one day re-assert its sway, and that one of the most 
fearful catastrophes ever felt by any country will leave what we 
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