1S72.] F. Stoliczka — Mammals and Birds inhabiting Kachh. 213 



leave it for want of water. Wherever intercalations of clayey beds between 

 sandy layers make a slight accumulation of fresh water possible, Kunda- 

 treelets (Prose-pis') grow rather abundantly and form little forests, sometimes 

 of one or two miles in length, but generally very narrow in breadth. How- 

 ever, little life animates these isolated tracts. 



Among the Kunda Sylvia curruca, Phylloscopus tristis, Lanius laJitora 

 and vittatus, Saxicola desertorum (= atrogularis) , Turtur Cambayensis, 

 Upwpa Ceylonensis, Athene brama and perhaps a few of the smaller hawks, 

 and the ubiquitous Sciurus palmarum are almost all the birds and mammals 

 to be observed, in addition to the usual camp followers, kites, crows, pigeons, 

 &c. The herds of cattle and sheep are invariably accompanied by JDicrunis 

 albirictus, and wolves, hysense, and generally also a leopard are not far off. 

 On the woodless portions of the Buni, almost the only birds to be seen are 

 Spizalauda deva, Alauda triborhyncha, Pterocles exustus, Gursorius Jamesoni 

 (= ? gallicus) , Chettusia gregaria, and one or two others of the cursorial tribe. 



The little islands in the Ran, called JBeyts, are nearly quite unin- 

 habited, and on the slightly larger ones a harrier and a stonechat {Circus 

 Swainsoni and Saxicola picata), or perhaps locally a stray dove, the pur- 

 suer and the pursued are all that an ordinary observer would notice of animal 

 life. 



The more elevated ground can be physically divided into three, (or 

 perhaps four) nearly parallel ranges, extending almost due east and west. 

 Each of these ranges has an abrupt declivity on the northern and a 

 very gradual slope on the southern side. Thus the greatest elevation in. 

 each range lies near the northern edge, where precipitous cliffs and mo- 

 derately hilly tracts occur ; but as the greatest height of any of the hills in 

 Kachh does not exceed 1500 feet, and as the entire breadth of the hilly 

 portions is rarely more than three or four miles, they are not capable of 

 producing any essential effect upon, or change in, the general climatal 

 conditions. The hills are as a rule only thinly covered with brushwood, 

 mostly consisting of leafless and thorny bushes, and oftener they are almost 

 entirely bare. 



The first of the ranges occupies Pacham, Karir, Bela and a few adjoin- 

 ing small islands in the Ran ; their northern declivities are for want of water 

 entirely uninhabited, but each has a long and gradual, though very thinly po- 

 pulated, slope to the south. On the eastern and western sides, the ridge ra- 

 ther abruptly disappears under the Ran, to the south the slope gradually passes 

 into the Buni, and Bela is scarcely separated from Wagur, which is the 

 most eastern district, moderately but very irregularly hilly, composed of short 

 ranges and a few isolated basalt hills ; and towards the west connected by low, 

 mostly cultivated, ground with Kachh proper. The second (the Jora-Hula- 

 man) range stretches along the northern edge, and the third, the Charvar 



