24 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA 



the Jubbulpiir and Alahabad railway. The hog-deer 

 {Axis porcinus) I have never met with in the west of the 

 province, nor is it very numerous even in the east, though 

 very common in the Sal tracts of Northern India. The 

 black partridge (FrancoUnus vulgaris) of Northern India 

 does not extend into these provinces at all, its place being 

 taken by the painted partridge {F. pictus), a very closely 

 aUied species. The great imperial pigeon of Southern 

 India does not, I think, cross the Narbada to the north, 

 though not uncommon in the higher forests to the south 

 of that river. Scientific research among the minor forms 

 of animal and vegetable life (for which I have had neither 

 the time nor the knowledge) may possibly ehcit many 

 confirmations of the law of distribution I have thus roughly 

 stated from observations that have presented themselves 

 to me as a forester and a sportsman. 



I need here only indicate another matter in connection 

 with this subject. It has already been stated that a tribe 

 called Korkiis, closely connected with what is called the 

 Kolarian stock, which is represented by the Kols and 

 Santals of Bengal, is found embedded among the Gonds 

 of these central hills. Now the commencement of the 

 range of this tribe precisely agrees with the isolated patch 

 of the Sal forest in the Denwa valley ; and their nearest 

 relatives of the same stock are the Kols of the country 

 to the north of Mandla, where the Sal forest again com- 

 mences. Thus we have an outlier of the human tribes 

 of Eastern India existing along with an outher of its 

 vegetable and animal forms, and the country between the 

 whole three and their nearest congeners occupied by other 

 forms. It is a most singular coincidence ; and such must 

 be my excuse for devoting so much of my space to what 

 must be to many an uninteresting discussion. 



I have said that at the time the Central Provinces 

 were constituted, little was accurately known regarding 

 the forest resources of their vast waste regions. It had, 

 indeed, been suspected that the projectors of the railways 

 had over-calculated the possible supply ; but it was little 

 guessed that the exhaustion had gone so far as really 

 proved to be the case. In another place will be found an 



