1868.] On the Birds of the Goona District. 209 



u Birds of India," a book which puts within the easy reach of every 

 resident of India, the means of pursuing the study of a most delightful 

 branch of Natural History. 



Goona is too unimportant a place politically or commercially to 

 give its name to a district, but I have used the term " Goona District" 

 as a convenient designation for the tract of country lying between the 

 rivers Scinde on the east, and Parbutty on the west, and bounded on 

 the north and south by lines connecting these two streams, 10 miles 

 distant from the station in either direction. Although I believe the 

 fauna of this district to be typical of that of a much wider area, I 

 profess in the present paper only to give a list of the birds found 

 within the limits just indicated. 



In respect of climate and physical features, the Goona district may 

 be taken as a type of the north-western part of Central India. Pass- 

 ing south from Gwalior, which is very little higher above the sea 

 than Agra, the land gradually ascends, until at Goona a height of 

 about 1400 feet is attained, and the elevation increases towards the 

 east and south in the directions of Saugor, Bhopal and In do re, 

 while towards the west, the country slopes gently until the sandy 

 plains of Eastern Rajpootana are reached. The surface of this part 

 of Central India is undulating and hilly. Few of the hills, however, 

 rise more than 400 or 500 feet above the plain, and the majority are 

 much lower. They are mostly rounded or flat-topped, and many are 

 thickly strewed with loose stones. In the rains they are green to 

 their summits, and the lower slopes of most are clothed with a dense 

 growth of bushes and low trees. The geologic structure of these 

 hills is chiefly laterite, a term rather vaguely applied to a reddish- 

 brown deposit, which varies in character from masses of hard though 

 often cellular rock* of a jaspery appearance, to beds of loose angular 

 rubble. 



The valleys and plains are covered with deep black soil, interspersed 

 here and there with mounds and slopes of reddish gravel and sandy 

 earth, the debris of laterite. Scattered over the country there are a 

 considerable number of small natural lakes and streams, many of 

 which, though much reduced in size, retain some water during the 

 hot weather. 



* Probably trap. 



