Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c12.8

c12.8

Among other wild animals known from one or both of these sources, we may notice the river-crocodile of gharial type, still an inhabitant of the Indus; some species of bear, monkey, squirrel, and parrot; the Barasingha deer and the horns at least of the Kashmir, spotted, Sambhur and hog deer - but these may have been imported. The jackal and the wolf were there, not far from the edges of the towns; rats, mongoose, lizards, and tortoises must have been familiar in street or courtyard; and fish from the rivers was eaten. Direct evidence of trees is confined to the lucky survival of a few charred beams, of which those of deodar must have been brought down from the hills to the north, though sissoo still grows in Sind; the cloying sweet smell of its freshly-sawn wood is an essential part of life in North-Western India today.