8 BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 
palustris is suet abundant, and I need waste no edie on the sft 
told tale of its ugly sanctuary and disgusting rites near Karachi. But 
we find here a new reptile quite out of place in this half-western land. 
This is the Gavial, or Gharyal, or fishing crocodile (Gavialis gange- 
ticus), characterized by its dentition and long snout, resembling to 
some extent those of the garfishes, and particularly suited to the 
capture of fish, and certain modifications of the nostrils, enabling it 
to remain for a very long time under water. It is, moreover, much 
less active on the shore than the broad-snouted crocodiles proper, and 
is seldom accused of the murder of terrestrial mammals in the shal- 
lows, or on the beach. This curious creature has its head-quarters 
in the great rivers which debouch into the head of the Bay of 
Bengal; and one allied genus (Tomistoma or Rhynchosuchus) 
extends at least as far east as Borneo. It has no representative in 
the New World, whose alligators indeed show a form rather less 
purely aquatic than that of our crocodiles proper, the limbs 
being less fin-like. Only one Old World alligator has been re- 
ported, a rare Chinese species. ‘Three species of Monitors (Varanus 
and Psammosaurus) are found, often in considerable numbers, 
especially the common “Ghorpur” (Stndice, Goh), which used to 
trouble memuch in Shikarpur by invading a poultry-yard carefully 
fenced against all other intruders. Smooth mud walls, hard as 
stone, defied rats and snakes, while cats and raptorial birds were 
excluded by a strong net covering the whole enclosure. But the 
“Qohs” climbed the wall, worked through the net, and played Old 
Harry with eggs and young birds. One comfort was that they were 
notable do much in the gymnastic way when gorged ; and usually 
paid for the night’s meal by the penalty of “infang thief” in the 
morning. I have not myself had occasion to note anything 
particular about the freshwater snakes of Sind, and the Amphibia 
(which in common parlance we class with reptiles) present no 
peculiarity worth noticing here. Mr. Murray notices no special 
genera of either, and only a few new species, a sea-snake, a toad 
and a frog. 
The Fishes, too, belong ‘ciouilie to genera and species already 
noticed, but there are some points about their distribution and. 
habits worthy of attention. 
The typical Mahseer, Barbus tor, which eee does not occur 
in any other west-flowing waters of this Presidency, is certainly 
an inhabitant of the Indus, although, within our boundary, that 
