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500

is very striking, and intensifies the solitude but here and there a flock of jungle fowl may be seen scurrying through the thickets, and certain localities contain peacock in great numbers. Every now and then is found an open dell crowded with innumerable bulbuls (Indian nightingale), who fill the air with lively song. Bustards, quail, and partridges, and three kinds of hornbill, with many varieties of owl, are found, but are not frequent. Large flocks of the small hill pigeon come down from the hills in the cold weather, when ortolan also are very common in the plains at the edge of the jungle. With the exception of the larger beasts of prey, the same kinds of animals are more or less common all over the district, while many of the streams, and especially the Rapti, are full of both varieties of alligator and shoals of

The

scarceness of birds



porpoises.

Members

of the well-to-do classes are usually provided with the sturdy ponies which are sold at the Debi Patan fair, and an exceedingly small breed is raised in the district itself.

hill

Eampur on

the Tirhi, the residence of Raja Krishan Datt Ram, is famous for the vice, the Ugliness, and the great powers of Endurance of E£mendurance of the animals it turns out. Horses and pur ponies, and breed ing of cattle. ponies, buffaloes and oxen, are largely used as beasts of burden to transport the overflowing grain across the difierent roads to the markets of the south. The average weights are about as follows

Mds.

A pony A buffalo The

...

...

I

...

severity of the

...

burden

6

is

Mds.

An

3 I

A

ox

....

four-bullock cart

... ...

3i or 4

20

somewhat mitigated by the tardy

rate of

progression, but is nevertheless hardly consistent with humanity.

There is a small breed of cattle of no great excellence. The chief breeding grounds are in the north under the forest, where they are kept in large herds, which, by the exercise of old grazing rights up to the very foot of the hills, did great damage to the young saplings and other forest produce. These rights have now been bought up by the abandonment on the part of Government of all rights in a large tract of outlying scrub, to which the depredations of the herds will for the future be confined. The foot and mouth disease rages with terrible virulence after a heavy rainy season and though no statistics are procurable on the subject, some idea is conveyed of the extent of its ravages by the number mortality Great among the herds of of carcases which rot on the fields, and the stench '^'^^^^^which pollutes the air of almost every village in the north during the months of November and December.

best cattle are imported from Nanpara, in the Bahraich district, is at Katra Bazar. The price of a pair yoke of plough oxen is Rs. 30 for carts a rather better quality is required, and the outside price is about Rs. 100 per pair. For travelling on metalled roads In whatever work they are engaged, they are cattle are usually shod. almost invariably castrated, and the increase of the flock is frequently provided for by the bulls which are let loose on great occasions by pious and wealthy Hindus. Almost all the jungles are infested with wild cattle, They are in much better probably the remains of former cultivation.

The

and the principal emporium