Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057345).pdf/19

HAR 11 place of any importance which is near a river (the Garra), but its population is not engaged in cither trading or fishing. In fact no water traffic or fisheries worthy of note are met with in the district. Fine robu are to be had in the Garra and Rámganga. None of the rivers or marshes have been enbanked. Hardoi is worse off for wood than any other district; its jungles cannot be called woods, and less than two per cent. of its area has been planted with groves, which is perhaps the reason its rainfall is so much below the provincial average. Fauna.-There is nothing peculiar in the fauna of Hardoi; its features are similar to those of Partabgarh and Lucknow. No tigers have been seen for twenty years, but leopards are still found in the jungles near Piháni. Black buck are very numerous in Gopamau, and everywhere along the sandy banks of the Gumti herds of fifty are found. On the Ganges, pear Mallánwán, they are not so common, but have much longer horns-24 inches are not infrequent. Níl-gáe are found in herds of forty in the jháu jungle around Dharmpur between the Ganges and Rámganga, also near Piháni and Tandiaou in the jungles around the Sai. Spotted deer are found in the bamboo brakes near the villages in Gopamau and near Atwa, the residence of Thákur Bharath Singh, half-way between Sandíla and Hardoi. The four-horned deer has recently disappeared. The writer shot one in 1865. Hares have become unaccountably scarce since 1868; the floods are supposed to be the cause. The mallard, teal, grey duck, and common goose are more abundant in Hardoi than in any other district of Oudh. The range of jhíls which dot the lower levels of the Sai valley abound in all kinds of water-fowl. Climate and sanitary conditions. The following account of the climate and sanitary conditions of Hardoi has been communicated by Dr. McReddie, the late civil surgcon, The climate of Hardoi does not differ materially from that of Oudh generally. Hailstorms and tornadoes are perhaps more common and dc- ructive; one in March 1868 destroyed crops to the value of Rs. 2,00,000. The average rainfall is said to have been 28 inches from 1862 to 1865, 28 inches in 1866, 55 inches in 1867, 14 in 1868, and this report gives the rainfall for years 1869, 1870, 1871, 1872 at 27, 47, 40, and 51 inches. The total rainfall will then average for the last ten years about 32 inches, that of the province being about 42. There is no doubt that Hardoi is perhaps the driest district in Oudh, even althouglı the returns for the years before 1866 may not be strictly accurate. The average for the last five years in the adjoining district Sitapur is 34 inches. In the revenue report for 1872 the average rainfall for the last five years is given at 39 inches, as follows:- 4 1867 1868 1869 67-3 24.2 28.1 1870 1871 1872 464 44.8 33.2 In 1873 the rainfall was only 21 inches, being considerably the lowest in Oudh, and again in 1874 the recorded rainfall in Bilgrám has been oply 31 inches, the lowest in Oudh.