Note 1 — Chapter VI · BUFFALO MIGRATIONS

There are two chief reasons1 for these movements of the buffaloes, of which the most urgent is the necessity for new grazing-places. During the dry season, lasting from about December to March, the pasturage around the villages where the Todas usually live becomes very scanty, and the buffaloes are taken to places where it is more abundant. Many of these places are in or near the Kundahs, where the rainfall is greater than over the rest of the hills, and others are scattered here and there about the hills in spots where, owing to favourable conditions, the ground is less parched than elsewhere. At other seasons of the year it may happen that the grazing in the neighbourhood of a village becomes exhausted, and it becomes necessary to take the buffaloes to another place.