: JOURNAL OF THE BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY INDEX AND TITLE PAGE VOL. XLI pe NiAN Inst, rN 7. Za \\e0 Wu “iS 69: 2 \ & JAN191942 =) Na>, L ww oh an Ns é NOS. 3 & 4 Price ee Rs. 2-4-0 MADRAS PRINTED AT THE DIOCESAN PRESS 1941 INSTRUCTIONS TO BINDER The contents of these two parts should be arranged in the following order when they are being bound : — Title page Contents of Nos. 3 and 4 of Vol. XLI List of Contributors List of Plates 2. Index to [lustrations | Errata i Index to Species ~~ List of Office Bearers, Members, etc. eae Members, MO To follow frontise- piece in this order. To go at the end of two numbers. THE JOURNAL OF THE BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY EDITED BY Rev Fr. J. F. CAIUS, S.J..F.L.S.. H. M. MCGUSTY AND S.H. PRATER, M.L.A., J.P. VOL. XLI Nos. 3 & 4 Containing 4 Coloured Plates, 74 Black and White Plates, 32 Text-figures, 2 Maps Dates of Publication Part Ill. (Pages 453 to 680) es August 1940 eee Vic tain coe 681 to 910) oat December 1940. LONDON AGENTS DAVID NUTT, (A. G. BERRY) 212, Shaftesbury Avenue, London, W.C. 2. PRINTED AT THE DIOCESAN PRESS, MADRAS 1941 CONPENDES OP VOLOME XL No. 3 Some BEAUTIFUL INDIAN CLIMBERS AND SHRUBS. Fart III. By N.L. Bor, M.A., D.Sc., F.L.S., 1.F.S., and M. B. Raizada, mM.sc. (With one coloured plate of Golden Shower, A7zg- nonita venustus Ker. three black and white plates and TUDE LORUATEOUTES aoc oiesnain 2th toe dra ciate aateie’s THE HoG-BADGERS ( Arclonye OF mea foot By R. 1 POCOC KH Riss CULM @LORTUL ICL iat vanccsawisetenleecewsenie = Toe BIRDS OF CENTRAL: INDIA. Part’ II: By: Sélim Ali with notes by H. WHISTLER, M.B.O.U.,F.Z.S.. AS Vistn TO Tan, WACCADIVE ISEANDS. “By Et: Col. R. W. Burton, 1.4. (Retd.) (Wzth four black and white plates)... ai : ki ; : NOTES ON SOME Oontee ae Oot WITH Diccae TIONS OF TWO NEW SUBSPECIES. By R. I. Pocock, F.R.S.. = Foose nah de Mon Wein cc aml salen eee THE Crore ee OF BN DEA: pean Pea By Dr oy le Hora, D.S$C., F.R.S.E., F.Z.S., F.R.A.S.B., F.N.I. (With one coloured plate, two black and white plates and one text-fi gure)... ...-- NOTES ON SOME INDIAN Birps. Part IV. By E.H.N. WOW tern MeBtO.Us, HAS. (W722 S72 PIG IES Vins ASicse ore SOME ComMMON INDIAN HERBS WITH NOTES ON THEIR ANATOMICAL CHARACTERS., Part III. By M. poe ae Din. (With three plates)... FisH LADDERS IN THE Soe ce oe De Hania itgiveier M.SC., iB Pea Di (ct IAD Ai 1WO-PIAles ioe iagas os acawnnee WiLtp ELEPHANTS IN Assam. By J. E. Hall. (With a plate)... Sa seis tinue meio sie delineates & Norges ON TG We erie ee Ce bonplandianum (C. shar ee AND Euphorbia perbracteata. By Leon Croizat.. : seesdahien RM a ack NOTES ON THE ies OF ees pre = By Messts. Ei C2) Smith, Bou. ©: Ef. Garthwaite, and Bb; E, Smythies, B.F.S., with systematic notes by Dr. C. B. Ticehurst, M.A., M.R.C.S., M.B.0.U. (Witha map)... SMALL GAME SHOOTING IN MysorE. By Major iy G. Phythian-Adams. 1A. (Retd.), F.z.s. (With a plate) 4 A 44 PAGE 489 514 518 526 o77 594 CONTENTS OF VOLUME XzLIi Achroia grisella FABR. AND 1TS STATUS IN SOUTH INDIA. By M. C. Cherian, B.A., B.Sc., D.1.c., and S. Ramachandran, CeAge THE Nicoreu ane AND Oooo ors Compeernen OF Tn By J EC ais aSn, balese. Remo - NOTES ON BUTTERFLIES OF THE Sela cee Ee Capt. W 2CauG@anrotec 2 MISCELLANEOUS NOTES :— XIII. XIV. XV. Behaviour of Monkeys when attacked. By Major K....G..Pbhythian-AGamasie, seen ee ee cece Effects of Mauling by Tiger. By W. H. Work- man.. A battle Raven henna "Tis igers ear: an aos By E..Ax Smly thiesmGa ame meses... oso. cgseeel A Large Panther. Raj-Kunwar Yashodhar Singh... Behaviour Gk (Conk a iepnac. aes Major H. J. Rossel. (With a plate)... On the Distinction between Taken ead Mel yan Gaur By Wa Rize Ciao aie) aa. ce A Large Head of the Indian Buffalo (Bos bubatis Linn.) By R. E. Parsons, F.R.E.s.. Measurements and Weights of Bleohoe Take By RvoGsMorriste, RiGiSepheZ-Sesc.e. oct Memorandum on the Kahilu Sanctuary. (A Cor- rection). By D’Arcy Weatherbe PAGE 604 607 646 Occurrence of the Allied. Grey Shrike (Lanzus. . excubitor pallidirostris) in the Rawalpindi ss 2 trict, Punjab. | By He W. Waite, M.B.O.U.. Swifts and Terns at Vengurla Rocks. By Ena yun Abdulali... a Wood Snipe (Gi nemoricol) 0 near Beige By M. J. Hackney... a On the Occurence of the Baikal or Gina Teal (Netiton formosunc) in Rewa State. By Lt.-Col. B. M. Mahon, D.s.0., M.c., Military Secretary to the Viceroy... The Long-tailed eras (Giga Denali in Kashmir.’ By Eoaudlow sacs ; Quail and Chukor (Alectoris one (A @lew By: Lt.-Col. C: Gs Teogood, Cire, Dis Onan 666 667 XVI. | XVII. XVIII. eX: DOS »O.4 F XXIT. XX. SOOM DVE XXV. .O, 08 F SoME BEAUTIFUL INDIAN CLIMBERS AND SHRUBS. By N, Ue Bor, MOA, DSC. FL S., M.Sc, CONTENTS OF VOLUME XLI Unusual colouring in a Common Pochard (Vyroca (With a sketch). By 'T. W. Deeks. By H. N. Charring- fuligula). Snake attacked by Frogs. LOI phe ea A ce ite cts sige etal ccalavs Hoos 4:hie.e'sin. wis os otra lowers momiesmaeton Python infested with Nematode Worms (OpAzdas- caris (claria). By Seabury. Wdwardes....2.:..%%3. An Aggressive King Cobra, (Waza hannah). M. W. Lowndes. (Wzth two photos)... aches Fly Fishing for Mahseer.. By J. R.M. ‘ Field’. ‘ The Fish Megalops as an aid to combat he Guineaworm carrier, Cyclops. By Dr. S. B. Setna, M.Sc., Ph.p., and C. V. Kulkarni, B.A., B.SC.. A case “of recovery pear aie ne ba the ic Scaled Viper ae carinata). By Lt.-Col. R. sen,.I.M.S.. A Visitation Ns fife Sconited Bocuse Ces miliaris LL.) in Travancore. By S. Jones. (With a plate)... Gee Association He eeti ie his i ee Tigo. Sconpions) (Crelzier). iby C. MceCann:..i3:5:.4... On freveainaica. By R. DD. Bombay s.c..002 5. esc On the Occurrence of Circhorium intybus Linn. y (Chicory) in Hyderabad, Deccan. By M. Abdus alanine MGM a Pl OI C\e eenasiue tengsee ens seca oe No. 4 Part LY: I.F.S., and M.B. Raizada, (With one coloured plate of Large-flowered Tecoma, 7Zecoma grandiflora Delaun four black and white plates, and five text-figures)... THE INDIAN (Retd.): photo)..- Be vets ee iio.a las cect doiens oe A LIST OF THE Bee OF THE are ce M. A. Wynter-Blyth, M.A.. ; A REPTILE AND AMPHIBIAN Wiener MeCann,..F.L.S. WILD Doc. By Lt. Col. R. W. Gene IA. i three black and white plates, and a “By Pat T.-C. (With nine black and white plates, and three text-figures)... NOTES ON Lowther, M.B.0.U., F.Z.S. SOME rere Bree. Geen ve ‘By Be ie N. (Wtth etght plates). -..:.. 000 segs PAGE 667 668 669 675 681 691 716 vi CONTENTS OF VOLUME XLI NotTES ON THE ORCHIDS OF MURREE HILL. By Abdul Hameed, M.Sc. (With nine plates)... THE GAME FISHES OF INDIA. Part X. “By itp, S. Te ere D.SC., -F.R:S.E., F.Z.S.,-F.R-A.S.B., F-N.1., (W 2th one coloured plate, one black and white plate, and five text-figures)...... SOME CoMMON INDIAN HERBS WITH NOTES ON THEIR ANA- TOMICAL CHARACTERS. Part IV. By M. Sayeedud-Din. (With three plates)... ee A NEw SPECIES OF Roce sae FROM THE Girne Dean PEAN BEDS OF WorLI HILL, BomBAy. By Dr. G. W. Chiplonker, D.sc. (With one plate)... NOTES ON THE FuLvous FRuIT-BAT ( Rie iG De Desm.) By C. McCann, F.L.s. (With one plate and one textl-figure)... : : ON THE Foop- PLANTS ( OF Missi “Bompyces (CELE ee. by 1, G, Sevastopulo,, HR. Bisse AAR TREO COP A Mausir RIVER OF SOUTHERN Tae By eCou R. W. Burton, 1.A. (Retd.) (Wzth a plate)... ere , THE MEDICINAL AND POISONOUS Compostnne, OF ene Parti V By J: FY Caius) ost. Base THE BIONOMICS OF THE YAM pore Gab een eee (Hope)].. By T. V.. KRamakmshnamAyvyar.) BA.) Ph.D: (With a plate)... es ON THE ALTERATIONS IN THE TISSUES OF Di elceiee « corchort- folia Linn. and Corchorus capsularts Linn. ON A CHANGE OF ENVIRONMENT. By D. P. Mullan. (Wzth two plates GN GMCAL-17OUVE) ats @eos GCC FC OHHF FOS ° MISCELLANEOUS NOTES :— I. The Number of Tigers Shot in Reserved Forest in India and Burma during the year 1937-1938. By S. H. Prater, ¢C.M.z.S.; Mons rr Il. The ‘Sambur’ Call of the Tiger ei Ae Bee lndee tion. By E..S. Lewis.. : III. A Tail-less Panther. By Da 1D. Raney Bi (With a photo)... ; és IV. Hyaena Carrying oft a nen enn V. “OntJackals. By BE. S.ewis.. ee eee VI. Mongoose attacking a Donkey. By E. S. Lewis. Vil. The Crab-eating Mongoose [Herfestes urva (Hodgs.)] in Captivity. By A. L’E, Brownlow. PAGE 778 784 795 874 877 881 889 890 891 891 893 893 WABUE XXIV. XXV. CONTENTS OF VOLUME XLI Hybrid American Bison and Indian Domestic Cow. By Sadeg Z. Shah. (With a photo)...... Whales in Baroda, with Notes on the Anatomy of the Fin-Whale (Balacnoptera indica) stranded at Mulvel in March 1939. By S. T. Moses, MA. DSC. ESZiS. ae PeRTA. 1. Maatees of a Salt Lick in ollecal, en ibatore, south India. By R.C. Morris.. ‘ The Indian Black Eagle ee te perniger Hodgs.) in Salsette. By S. H. Prater. Eggs of Yellow-wattled Lapwing. [Lodzhluvia malabarica a z By Major EK. G. Phythian- Adams (Retd.)... Partial Albinism in a onuiees Gide serosa). By Major R.C. Macnamara. (With a photo)... The Bronze-capped Teal (Aunetta falcata) in the Ambala District. By Major R. C. Nicholas.... Does the Common Whistling Teal have more than one brood inthe year? By R.E. Parsons, F.R.E.S.. apa. Late Stay of aes aap Lt. Col, G. O° Tae eee Migration of Wild Fowl. By EDS.........0.....06 Migration of Wild Fowl. (Corrigenda)............0 Crocodile and Wild Boar. “By Has, Lewis:........ An Ingenious Fish Trap. By Lt. A. G. Sande- man. (With a diagram)... Migration of Butterflies. By Lowe, R.E.. - A Bi-Cellulaz peconee (ame Sie i). "5, ie Cherian Jacob, L.ag., F.L.S. (With a plate)... A New Variety of Coconut Palm (Cocos nucifera Ee var fee By K. Cherian Jacob, L.Ag., HabsSsd . Stem Fasciation in fine eee, Balt ( yee Hein Ee By Ko Cherian Jacob, L.49.; B.S. oe a plate)... ; Preuininy Notes on a eco ut Bocca Pour: to Amrabad Forest Reserve, H.E.H. The Nizam’s Dominions, Hyderabad ae By M. Sayeedud- Din. (Witha plate)... SB earn otenict aeet yc Sterne ar ELs Be vii PAGE 894 895 898 899 siete, 899 900 906 o07 ALPHABE RiGAT. LTASP OREGON T RIBULORS VOLUME XLI ABDULALI, HUMAYUN;. Swifts and Terns at Vengurla Rocks ABDUS SALAM, M.; On the Occurrence of Cuichoriuim intybus Linn. (Chicory) in Hyderabad, Deccan. (Wzth @ Pldle) en aoe i: Att, SALIM ; The Birds of Cen- tral India. Part II. With notesby H. Whistler, M.B.0.U., AYVAR, T. V. RAMAKRISHNA, B.A., Ph.D.; The. Bionomics of the Yam Beetle [| Galerucida bicolor (Hope)]. (With a plate) i, ee wae BomBay, R. D.; On Frerea in- dica wes sate jinetin Bae BOR N= 3 M-As; DsSCi,¢R Esse I.F.S., and RAIZADA, M.B., M.Sc.; Some Beautiful Indian Climbersand Shrubs. Part III. (Wit four plates and five text-figures) . mms ee Part IV. (With five plates and five text-figures)... : Brown, Lt. D. Ramsay; A Tail-less Panther. (With a photo) ve =? BROWNLOW, A. L’E.; The Crab-eating Mongoose [Her- pestes urva Hodgs.] in Capti- vity : ete oes BURTON WLD:-COne Re Ws Ta: (Retda)i = AS visit: to. the Laccadivelslands. (W2th four plates)". ae A Nos. 3 and 4 PAGE 4 661 630 ey 470 | 874 679 453 890 893 489 | BURTON ie -Con.R; W., TAs: The Indian Wild Dog. (With three plates and a photo) A Mahsir River of Southern India. (With a plate) CALUS She Sit F.0cS. = he Medicinal and Poisonous Com- posites of India ; The Medicinal and Poisonous Composites of India. Part II CARROTT, Capt. W.C.; Notes on Butterflies: of the Shan States ae as fa% CHaRRINGTON, H. N.; Snake attacked by Frogs or CHERIANE ME) (Ca CBs; (B:SC., D.I.c. and RAMACHANDRAN, Day ee AS. s. Achr ola Syisella Fabr. and its status in South India ee moe Bee CHIPLONKER, Dr. G. W., D.Sc. ; —_—_—_ —___.. . A New Species of Fossil Frog. from the Inter-Trappean Beds of Worli Hill, Bombay. (With one plate) eG CROIZAT, - LEON; Notes on Indian Auphorbiaceae ; Croton bonplandianum (C. sparst- florum) and (Euphorbia per- bracteata) css we An Derxs, T. W.; Unusual colour- ing in a Common Pochard (Nyroca fuligula). (With a sketch) EDITORS ; Fowl Migration of Wild JAN 14 1942 902, PAGE 691 828 607 838 646 668 799 667 903 LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS PAGE EDWARDES, SEABURY; Python infested with Nematode Worms (Ophidascaris filaria) hehe) GARTHWAITE, P. F.; See SMITH, H. Soe Hackney, M. J. ; Wood Snipe (Cupella SW RO) near Bombay ... aes a3 Re OOS Hari, J. E.; Wild Elephants in Assam. (With a plate)... 563 HAMEED, ABDUL, M.Sc.; Notes on the Orchids of Murree Hill. (With nine plates) .. sae HO HORA, >. ls-* DSe:, F.R.S.E.; FZ Sie Reno. be Lhe, Game “Bishes, of india, Part }X.. (With three plates and one text-figure) a or O18 Part X. (Wilh two plates, and five text figures) .. 84 JACOB, K. CHERIAN, L. Ag., F.L.S. ; A Bi-Cellular Coconut (Cocos nucifera L.). (Witha PLAICE hice. ns ae aoe ey S105) A New Variety of Coconut Palm (Cocos nucifera L. var. Spicata) ... Ss ine ve 906 Stem Fasciation in the Areca Palm (Areca catechu L.) (With a plate) .. a 907 JonES, 8.; A Visitation of fine Spotted Miepeunt ( dularches miliaris WL.) in Travancore. (With a plate) ... oe ue 41676 JORe M, “Field ’;-EFly Pish- ing for Mahseer iis ee SO7Q KuAN, DR. HAMID,M.SC.,LL.B., ph.p. ; Fish: Ladders in the Punjab. (With a map and two plates) ee ae Se) et DOL PEWS sco. 5 Lhe’ sambur 7 Call of the Tiger and its Ex- planation ee see ee Ood eee On ahackals! s0, col ; Mongoose at- tacking a Donkey ais 18.) E89S ~- =... Crocodile. and Wild Boar a we pe tS Lower, Mayor, J. H. B., R.E Migration of Butterflies LOWNDES, M. W.; An Agres- sive Kino Cobra’) (VV ¢7a hannah). (With two photos).. LOWTHER, E. H. N., M.B.0.U., F.z.S.; Notes on Some Indian Birds. Part IV. (With six plates) eS ee Part V. (With eight plates). LupLow, F.; The Long-tailed Duck (Clangula Me) in Kashmir 4 MACNAMARA, Teco R. C. Partial Albinism ina Chuo Alectoris grvaeca) : Manon, LikEvuT.-CoLt. B. M., D.S.0., M.C.; On the Occur- rence of the Baikal or Cluck- ing Teal (Nettion formosunz) in Rewa State ... ied McCann, C., F.L.S.; Associa- tion between Latocera rubus L. and Book- apa nee fer) i Reptile and Amphibian \iecclany: (With nine plates and three text-figures) —; Notes on the Fulvous Fruit-Bat (Rozset- tus leschenaulti Desm.). (With one plate and one text- figure) ass ae se MILITARY SECRETARY TO THE VICEROY; See MAHON, LikutT.-COL., B.M., D.S.O., M.C. sa MorrRIs, R. C., F.R.G.S., F.Z.S. Meacdrements and Woes a: Elephant Tusks : ~ ; Analysis of a Salt Lick in Kollegal, Coim- batore, South India Moses; 8S... T.,.. MiA<5’ D.SCs, H.Z.S;.08 ReA1,. Whales? ‘im Baroda, With Notes on the Anatomy of the Fin-Whale (Balaenoptera tndica\ Strand- ed at Mulvel in March 1939... 670 765 666 S99 NI = bo €60 898 895 MULLAN, D. P: = On the Altera- tions in the tissues of J/elochia corchorifolia Linn. and Cor- chorius capsularis Linn. on a change of environment. ( Wzth two plates and Wa wiex7 figure) ae ee ve NicHoLas, Mayor, R. C.; The Bronze-capped Teal ( Aunetta falcata) inthe Ambala District © BRIEN, vua- Cor. Gwe » Late Stay of Ssipe oat ae PARSONS, Xe R, Soy eX Large Head of the Indian Buffalo (Sos dubalis Linn.) .. —; Does the Common Whistling Teal have more than one brood in the year? PHYTHIAN-ADAMS, Magor Eee Ge AUK, )2 07.56. Small Game Shooting in Mysore. (Witha plate) Behaviour of Monkeys when attacked... Eggs of Yellow-Wattled Lap- wing [Lobipluvia malabarica (Bodd.) ]... ane ody PIzEy, R. M.; On the Distinc- tion between Indian and Ma- layan Gaur. (With a plate) . ata hy Pocock, R: 1., F.R.S.;> The Hog-Badgers (Arctonyx) of British India. (Wzth text- figure) oe See - — ; Notes on some British Indian Otters, with Descriptions of two new subspecies nae aS PP RVALI RR ol Cs MZ. Se, ML -Aa eNambsr jor Licers Shot in Reserved Forest in India and Burma during the .Year 1937-38 The Indian Black Eagle (lctinaétus malayanus per- niger Hodgs.) in Salsette PAGE 909 | 901 (2) on ide) 594 €53 899 657 461 514 | 831 899 LAST \ORACONGRIBOLORS RATZADA, M. B., M.sc.; See BOR, NEY Ora. DESC... FL S., FS: ROSSEL, PWlLATOR El.) Jige ase- haviour of Gaur and Elephant (With a plate) ... SANDEMAN, Lt. A. G.; An Ingenious Fish Trap. (With a diagram) a Ase SAYEEDUD-Din, M.; Some Common Indian Herbs with Notes on their Anatomical Characters. PartIIl. (With three plates) ee Part IV. (With three plates). ; Prelimi- nary Notes on a recent Botani- cal Tour to Amrabad Forest Reserve, HH: fH.oH. “Athe Nizam’s Dominions, Hydera- bad (Dn ). (Witha plate)... SEN, UT.-Cor: Re. 1.M.S.3 A case of recovery from the bite of the. Saw-Scaled Viper (Echis carinata) vee SETNA,WDR-)0. 2, M.SC.,.Ph.D., ANG mICULROAR INT, iC. UV so B As. B.sc.; The Fish Wegalops as an aid to combat the Guinea- worm carrier, Cyclops —_— oe |, SEVASTOPULO, D. G., F.R.E.S. ; On the Food-Plants of Indian Bombyces (Heterocera) SHAH, SADEG Z.; Hybrid American Bison and Indian Domestic Cow. (Witha photo). SHortTT, H. E.; HYAENA Carrying off a Bear Cub SINGH, RAaJ-KUNWAR YASHO- DHAR; A Large Panther Simi PH © at, BsOU 5), GARTHWAITE, P. F., and SMYTHIES, B.E., B.F.S. Notes on the Birds of Nattaung, Karenni, with systematic notes by Dr. C. B. TICEHURST, M.A.) eM. RoC (Ss) eM. BaiOLa0, (Witha map) ... 400 SMYTHIES, B. E., B.F.S.; See SMITH, H. C., M.B.O.U, PAGE 656 903 548 795 907 675 672 817 894 89] 656 5/7 LISI OLCONTRIBULORS SMYTHIES, E. A , C.I.E., 1.F.S.3 A Battle Royal between Tigers and an Elephant an te TICEHURST, DR. C. B., M°A., M.R.C.S., M.B.O.U.; See SMITH, Fe C., M:B.0.U. TooGooD, LIEuT.-CoL. C. G., CeE =D:S.0%;, ‘Quail and Chukor (Alectoris graeca) (a Query) ... ee ai WalITE, H. W., M.B.O.U.; Oc- currence of the Allied Grey Shrike (Lamius eaxcubritor PAGE 654 (op) pallidirostris) in the Rawal- pindi District, Punjab WEATHERBE, D’Arcy ; Memo- randum on the Kahilu Sanc- tuary. (A Correction) WHISTLER,H.,M.B 0.U.,F¥.Z.S.; See ALI, SALIM. WoRKMAN, W. H.; Effects of Mauling by Tiger WYNTER-BLYTH, M.A., M.A.; A List of the Butterflies of the Simla Hills 660 653 ™“SI 7 ip) LPI STHOT TEATS: VOLUME XLI Nos. 3 and 4 PAGE Some Beaut:ful Indian Climbers and Shrubs et oe Plate Ifl. Golden Shower (A4/guonta venusta, Ker) sal HSS Plates do. do. ra 454, 458 A Visit to the Laccadive Islands Plate (A) Chetlat: The tomb of Carpenter Primrose. 3 (B) Chetlat: Hauling in the Ola Vala Gree Ol Plate (A) Chetlat: A Barracouda, 36 Ibs. (B) Collecting at Chetlat eee due xt hele Plate (A) Chetlat: Laccadive Islanders. (B) My Fishing Boat ose wo. 498 Plate (A) Kadamat. A sinuentred Delghin’. (B) Aadamat. One of the ten Porpoises ae O0S Game Fishes of India Plate I, 1. The Putitor Mahseer Barbus (Tor) putitora (Hamilton). 2. The Tor Mahseer Barbus (Tor) tor (Hamilton). 521 Plate If. Figs 1-4 Types of lips in Tor Mahseer, Barbus (Zor) tor (Hamilton) eee Oe Plate III. Lateral view of Barbus (Tor) tor ieermicons from Barak River, Assam nee ae Se Oce Notes on some Indian Birds Plate Green Bee Eater at entrance fo nest... re 529 Plate Male Paradise Flycatcher at nest an J oo Plate Spotted Babbler ae 2c at MEOOS Plate Black-backed Woodpecker ... UOT, Plate Jerdon’s Chloropsis ie ces wea. 589 Plate Indian Cuckoo Shrike ee oP Pee 0) Some Common Indian Herbs Plate 1. Andrographis echioides Nees os sa. 948 Plate II. do. Sea be a2 DOU Plate BO do. ee or Bee, ON!) Fish Ladders in the Punjab Map of the Punjab bee ete mot ros sec8, OOS Plate I. (a) Weir across River Sutlej at Rupar Headworks. (6). Fish ladder at Rupar ... 505 Plate II. (a) Weir across River Ravi at Medhopur Head: works. (6) Fish ladder at Madhopur. (c) Fish ladder at Khanki. (d) Rafting bay at Madhopur os OOS Wild Elephants in Assam Plate Rogue Elephant. Kamrup, Assam ... eh GOO), Notes on the Birds of Nattating, Karenni Map of country round Nattaung _... oe oe a SVE JAN 14 1942 VISTO OF PLATES Pack Small game shooting in Mysore Plate (a) Demoiselle Cranes. (6) A halt for lunch 600 Behaviour—of Gaur and Elephant Plate Bison and Elephant 655 Distinction between Indian and Malayan Gaur Plate Skulls of Bos (4160s) gaurus or cd Siete: A visitation of the Spotted Locust (dularches miliaris L.) in Travancore Plate Dorsal and ventral view we sed 076 The Occurrence of Chicory (Cichorium tintybus Linn) in Hyderabad. Deccan Plate Flowers and young plants ... 680 Some Beautiful Indian Climbers and Shrubs Plate - IV. Large-flowered Tecoma (Tecoma grandiflora Delaun ) ee eae Ssxey4 Plates Tke Yellow Biden or Trumpet Flower (Tecoma stans (Linn.) H.B.K.) Ses a 683, 684 Plates eerie -Vine ( Tecoma radicans Juss. ) 686, 688 The Indian Wild Dog. Plate The Asiatic Wild Dog (Cuon javanicus) 691 Plate Wild Dog Puppies sie 697 Plate Indian Wild Dog Puppies 698 A Reptile and Amphibian Miscellany Plate l. Crocedilus palustris Lesson at 744 Plate i Do. Female genital ejetems 745 Plate Ill. A gravid Pond Turtle | Lzssemys punctata granosa (Schoepeét)i]| ... “ie 747 Plate IV.. The Rock Gecko (Eenidacty bes maculatus Smith ). (oy Plate V. (a) Brook’s Gecko ( do. brookt Gray) 756 (6) Common House-Gecko (Hemidactylus tlavivi- ridis Ruppel.) as 756 Plate VI. (a) gand 2 Rock Gecko Cleniaicnlas is 28 St eg ee . Smith). (6) Hind foot of Prashad’s Gecko (Hemidactylus ..° prashadt Smith) 75/ Plate VII. (a) Common House-Gecko (Hemidaclylus flavivi- vidis Ruppel). Prashad’s Gecko (Hemidactylus prashadt Smith). (6) Brook’s Gecko (Hemidactylus brooki Gray) ... 758 Plate VIII. Common House-Gecko ( do. flaviviriadts Rtippel) emerging from its egg 7939 Plate IX. gard Genital Organs of Hemidactylus jee ridis Rtppel (Diagrammatic) 760 Notes on Some Indian Birds Plate Grey Partridge sce 700 Plate (a) Typical nesting site bE Paried Sour Fowl. (6) Painted Spur-Fowl 767 Plate Red Jungle-Fow] chicks ie 768 Plate Peahen incubating and eggs in a tree 769 Plate Common Bustard-Quail vii Riv LIST OF PLATES Plate Jungle Bush-Quail Plate Common Indian Sandgrouse x0 Plate Comb-Duck or Nukhta at nest Notes on the Orchids of Murree Hill Plate I. Cephalanthra ensifolia Plate Il. Liparts rostrata Plate Ill. Aerminium angustitolium Plate IV. Habenaria edgeworthit Plate Vi do. intermedia Plate Nal: Mo. aitchisonia Plate VU. &dzpactis latifolia Plate VILL. Neottia listervides Plate IX. Satyrium nepalense The Game Fishes of India Plate I. The Mosal Mahseer, Barbus ( Tor) mosal (Haimil- ton) Re ae oe Ae Plate Il. Copies of Hamilton’s original drawings of Cyprinus (Cyprinus) mosal ss Some Common Indian Herbs with notes on their Anatomical Char See Plate Il. Leonotis nepetaefolia R. Br. Plate Il. do. Plate LEE, do. A New Species of Fossil Frog from the Inter- Trappean Bede of Worli Hill, Bombay Plate I. J/ndobatrachus trivialis sp. nov. : Notes on the Fulvous Fruit-Bat (Rousettus leschenaultt Desm.) Plate Roost in a tunnel South of Tulsi Lake, Salsette Is. A Mahsir River of Southern India Plate (a) Bhavani Scenery; the Varagaar Pool. (6) A 26 1b. Mahsir The Bionomics of the Yam Beetle ( Galerucida bicolor (elope): ) a pest ae Cultivated Yam in South India. Plate I. Grub and Adult Alterations in the Tissues of Welochia corchorifolia Linn. mee Gorenore us capsularis Linn. on a change of Environment Plate I. Melochia corchorifolia Plate Il. Corchorus capsularis Crab-eating Mongoose (Herpestes urva (Hodgs.) ) in Beatie Plate (az) and (6) Animal in two positions Bi-cellular Coconut (Cccéos nucifera L.) Plate (a) Showing the septum. (6) Showing the two enlarged ‘ eyes’ A New variety of Coconut Palm Plate Inflorescence of Cocos nucifera Linn. var spicata KC. Jacob Stem Fasciation in the Areca Palm (Areca catechu nae ) Plate Branched Areca Palm, Kailar Gardens Preliminary Notes on a Recent Botanical Tour to Amrabad morest Reserve, H.E.H. the Nizam’s Dominions, Hyderabad (Dn.]. Plate (a) Site of wild trees of Moringa pterigosperma Gaertn. (6) A bamboo clump oat aie BSC 772 774 776 “NI 0) ine) 801 805 828 874 878 879 893 905 908 ENDO ELUSLER ALLIONS VOLUME XLI Nos. 3 and 4 PAGE Alectoris graeca Photo (Partial albinism) esi) American Bison and Indian Domestic Cow hybrid POtOee ss oe ae syd Andrographis echioides Pls. I-IIL 548, 550 Areca catechu Photo —%:.. a Lt Aularches miliaris L. (Spotted Locust), Visitation of, in Tra- vancore Pie be 676 Barbus (Tor) mosal PI. 785 Text-fig. (Lateral view) 786 oA (Ventral view of head) 787 Barbus (Tor) putttora Pl. ue He me eee OO: Text-fig. (Branchial and hyoid arches— ventral view)... 790 | (Left pharyngeal bone and teeth) ... 791 | is {Young teeth) 793 Barbus (Tor) tor Pls; Re bie os ee ee Bignonia venusta Ker Pls. 453, 454, 458 Bison and Elephant Vedi Yes =the a 656 Black-capped Woodpecker Pi am co B07 Bos ( Bibos) gaurus Pl. Skulls oe BOOS) Botanical Tour to Amrabad Forest Reserve Photos aes a 908 Cephalanthra enstfolia Pi: a ee 782 PaGR Chicory (Cichorium intybus Linn.) in Hyderabad, Deccan PI. Flowers and young plants. 680 Cichortum intybus Linn (Chi- cory) in Elyderabad, Deccan Pl. Flowers and young plants aor 8 OSU Cocos nucifera var. spicata (Inflorescence) Photo . zat 906 Cocos nucifera (bi-cellular) Photos a 905 Comb-Duck at nest | Eat ee oe a 776 Comnion Bustard-Quail Jed ae ee ms 771 Common Indian Sandgrouse tell = at 774 Corchorus capsularis Pi hie a8 eae e079 Crab-eating Mongoose Photo ome 893 Crocodilus palustris Text-fig. (Egg-tooth) 745 ae (Copulatory organ). 746 Fis; - 744, 745 Cuon javanicus Pl. ie oie ve 692 Cyprinus (cyprinus) mosal Pl: ae 785 Demoiselle Cranes eb ee da dais o> 2000 Elephantand Gaur, Behaviour of Pi hts as 656 Epipactts latitolia Pi. sa a 782 Fish Ladders in the Punjab id Pls, aes 5 2004 ,050 Galerucida bicolor (Grub and adult) Pie . ae 873 Game F shes of India Pls. ase 921, 522, 785, 786 Xvi PAGE | Gaur and Elephant, Behaviour of Ph ae 656 Green Bee-eater Pie ae 529 Grey Partridge Ble 765 Habenaria nye By. aie a &: 782 -—— edgeworthii eats a a 752 — —— intermedia Pl, 782 Hemidactylus br air lea 2 ae 756, 758 2 flaviviridis Pi: 786, 758, 759, 760 Text-fig. (Ege-tooth) 763 - maculatus Pie — se oe FO Sf --— prashadt Pi. ae an ae 757, 758 Herminium angustifolium Ph. oe i re 752 Indian and Malayan Gaur fet: aac 658 Indian Birds Pls. ies BOL eoG;e 7/05) 702,, 708, 769.701; a 114; 776 Indian Cuckoo-Shrike Je ip eee aah ee 540 Indian Wild Dogs ee Bigietre: ee soacmea: ae 697, €98 LNAGOOITACHUSALIUIGUIS eh Pl; ai tee $01 Jerdon’s Chloropsis Pie nes oe 939 Jungle Bush-Quail Pl. : “iz Laccadive Talends. Pls. 491, 492, 498, 508 Leonotis nebetactolia se 795, 796 Liparis vostiata Pi. 782 Lissemys punciaHe a anosa Pile Bos Hs she 747 Mahsir River of S. India Pi. 828 Map of country round Nattaung, Karenni ... INDEX TO ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE | Melochia corchorifolia- Pees Ge 878 | Mongoose Photo 893 Mongoose, Crab- Leaine Photo Bae oa eo Ge Nattaung, Karenni, Map of | country round 3/7 | Neottia listeroides Par, ap ae bed 782 Orchids of Murree Hill Pls. 782 Painted sad Poni ne 767 Paradise FL jean Jed 531 | Peanen jedi 769 | Red Gana owl (chek ie Way x 768 Rousettus ena: AU pe 580 Photo 899 Satyrium pe peTente Pe a A wey Small game crootnen in Myscre Pl. ay: 3 600 Spotted Babbler 4 PI: re one asf Pere Oe Spotted Locust ...( Aularches._... . miliaris L.). Visitation of, in - ‘Travancore | Pie ie ar 676 Tail-less Panther Photo ap 890 Tecoma austratis Text-fig. 689 Tecoma granattlora ean Pl, ahs os 681 Tecoma jasminoides Text-fig. wax O88 Tecoma radicans, Pls. 686, 688 Mext-tow 7 636 Tecoma stans Pls, a: 683, 684 Text-fig. ae 683 Wild Elephants in Agee “f Pl ae ee ie weve GOO Yam Beetle (Grub and adult) Pl. ae 874 ERRATA VOL. XLI, No. 4 Page 699, line 16, from bottom, for ‘Tan-Kwe’ vead ‘ Taw-Kwe’. ,, 801, below the Plate facing p. 801, for ‘approx. x 14 vead ‘ approx. x 3’. », 901, line 17, from top for ‘ Cocoyx’ read ‘ Coccyx’. 5, 804, last line fox ‘approx. x 14’ vead ‘ approx. x 3’. », 819, line 4, from bottom, for ‘ eugenla’ vead ‘ eugenia ’. » 881, ,, 12, from bottom, (Area of controlled forest in square miles in Indore) for ‘ 260’ read ‘ 2600’. », 881, line 5, from bottom (Area of controlled forest in square miles in Hyderabad State) for ‘546’ read © 9485°35’. VOL. XLII, No. 1 Page 116, line 6, from top, for ‘S. sp. Nov.’ read ‘ Sp. Nov.’. =~ oy~Ssi«ay:«Cs LG, fr-O=M Hottom, for ‘S. sp. Nov.’ vead ‘Sp. Nov.’ ,, 123, lines 14 and 16, from bottom, for ‘Tujuria’ read ‘Tajuria ’. », 207 (Misc. Note No. XXI) right through this note for ‘ Triperestrata’ read ‘ Trifenestrata ’. », 209 (Misc. Note No. XXIII) line 22, from top for ‘ nibbed ’ vead ‘nibbled ’. . INDEX OF SPECIES Abisara chela kalawna - echerius angulata suffusa ——— - fylla ———- kausambi Piiones - neophron neophron Acanthospermum brasilium Acanthurus triostegus .. Achalarus bifasciatus casyapa Achillea millefolium ———— santolina Achras sapota Achroia cinereola —- grisella ... Actias selene : Actiniopteris dieietoma. Actinodura ramsayi ramsayi ... Actinor radians Adansonia digitata Adenostemma viscosum Adiantum caudatum Adolias cyanipardus —— -dirtea jadeitina ZEgithaliscus concinnus pulchellus Zigle marmelos | 4Egypius monachus AZromachus stigmata a thopyega nipalensis karenensis Aganais ficus Ageratum conyzoides Ailanthus excelsa Alangium lamarckii Alcedo atthis bengalensis Alcippe fratercula fratercula .. Alcurus striatus ... Alectoris graeca .. Altha adala Amarantus oleraceus ——- spinosus Amatissa consorta - cuprea Amaurornis phoenicurus Cineaec 3 Amblonyx cinerea nirnai “JAN 14 1942 PAGE 652 652 731 652 652 652 614 493, 503 738 615 617 812 605 604 823 910 . 983 ~ 740 812 617 910 649 649 580 909 Bean 15) ‘739 591 820 617 909 909 473 582 585. 667, 899 . 825 .. ---680 . 680 827 827 482 515 Amblypodia alemon dodoncea ... ganesa vanesa ——— ramarama Amicta rhabdophora Amsacta lactinea —— -— moorei Anaphalis neelgerryana Anastomus oscitans Andraca albilunata Andrographis echioides... — paniculata Anhinga melanogaster ... Anogeissus latifolia Anona reticulata squamosa Anser indicus Anthemis cotula ——_——-- gayana ————.- odontostephana Antheraea assamensis ... paphia —— roylei Antheua Anthoceros sp. ... Anthus hodgsoni hodgsont ©... Antigone antigone antigone Apanteles galleriae Apatura ambica ambica -——— =- cooperi —- dingavani —- parisatis parisatis -- ulupi kalaurica Apharitis lilacinus Aporia agathon caphusa ———-- —--—= HHTyKe - leucodice soracte*- -_——- nabellica nabelliea - Appias lalage lalage —- libythea libythea Apus affinis affinis ——~- melba melba Aquila rapax vindhiana ~ PAGE “736; ih 730 lox - 909 647, 736 826 820 820 619 486 823 548° 909 485 812 811 487 », sold 620 620 824° 824 ie Gees $24 910. ec OOd: 483 606 727 647 647 647 647 736 720 720 720 720) ayehiggy 474: ves 7g 476 XX Arachnothera magna magna... Arborophila rufogularis tickelli Arctia caia villica Arctium lappa Arctonyx collaris albogularis ane - anneus ee ee CO ais a ee Goll! ut ae - taraiyensis ... -~—-——-- isonyx —————-- taxoides Ardea cinerea rectirostris Ardeola grayii Areca catechu Argina argus - cribraria -syringa ... oe Argynnis adippe jainadeva ——--— childreni childreni —— —- ——— — sakontala ... ——-—- clara clara ————-- eugenia mackinnoni ———— - hyperbius hyperbius - kamala Be — ——- lathonia issoea ————-- pales sipora ... Argyreia speciosa Aroa leucogramma ——- ochracea Arrabidaea magnifica Artamus fuscus ... Artemisia absinthium -— annua... —— —- dracunculus ... ——-- caruifolia ———- —- maritima ——-—- persica ————-- sacrorum -—-—_ — scoparia ———-—- siversiana ... —- vulgaris Artona ‘00 Arundinaria elegans Asio flammeus flammeus Asota caricae Aspidoparia morar Aster trinervius ... 2: Astur badius dussumieri Astycus augias augias ... purpurea manillensis .,. PAGE 591 593 820 820 620 466 466 463 465 463 463 461 486 486 487 906 821 - 821 821 730 651 730 730 730 730 730 730 730 909 821 821 459 589 622 623 624 623 624 625 625 625 625 625 818 578 475 820 556 627 477 740 INDEX OF SPECIES PAGE Asura humilis 819 ——— lutara 819 semifascia 819 Asuridia ridibunda 819 Atalantia monophylla 909 Ateila alcippe burmana sa POON phalanta ... 651, 731 Athene brama indica 475 Attacus atlas 823 Aularches miliaris sie son ONG Aulocera brahminus brahminus eee LS = —- padma padma 725 ———_—-- Saraswati 725 —- swaha swaha 725 Azanus ubaldus ... 732 — uranus oes 732 Badamia exclamationis... 738 Balaenoptera indica 895 Baltia butleri butleri 719 Baoris bevani bevani 741 discreta himalaya 740 eltola 740 guttatus bada 741 ——— —-- guttatus 740 mathias mathias 740 sinensis sinensis 740 zelleri cinnara 741 Barbus chola 673 - hexastichus 785 - megalepis 785 ———- mosal O21 —-——- phutunio vas 672 - (Puntius) puckelli 673 - (Puntius) ticto 673 - putitora ... 522 - sophore ... Abe “i crea ROS - tor We O21; 22a 00 a AOo ——.- (Tor) mosal cas FaKOD Bassia latifolia 811, 909 Batocera rubus 678 Bauhinia vahlii ae ; 909 Belenois mesentina mesentina Hpetey 7/40) Bhringa remifer tectirostris 589 Bibasis sena sena 738 Bidens pilosa 628 tripartita ... 628 Bignonia bbe tmeeoo — capreolat 455, 456 ——_—-— magnifica 455, 459 ———— speciosa 455, 458 ——_——- unguis-cati 455, 457 £NDEX OF SPECIES Bignonia venusta Blepharis molluginifolia Blumea balsamifera — chinensis — densiflora —- eriantha - lacera ae -—myriocephala ... oe Blythipicus pyrrhotis pyrrhotis Bombax ceiba : & -— malabaricum .. Bombyx mori Bos bubalis —-- frontalis —-- gaurus gaurus —-- ———- hubbacki - readi Bcswellia serrata — == Brachypternus benghalens’s pene: lensis ... Brachypteryx cruralis - nipalensis nipalensis Brahmaea wallichii Bubulcus ibis coromandus Buchanania latifolia Burhinus cedicnemis ind:cus Butastur teesa Butea frondosa cas Butorides striatus javanicus Cacomantis merulinus ... ; -_——- + - —— cvtantne Calendula arvensis ——-—--- officinalis Calinaga buddha buddha sudassana Callimorpha principalis Calliope calliope Callizygeena semperi Campsis grandiflora radicans Cania bilinea Canis indicus —- lupus Capella gallinago Sallttage — nemoricola -~stenura ... Capparis horrida oe Caprimulgus asiaticus asiaticus -——--- ———- indicus indicus ... ——_== ——__—_ --—-—— macrourus bimaculatus. monticolus monticolus... Se PAGE 454 909 629 629 629 629 630 630 992 811 909 | 823 659 658 658 658 658 909 470 586 586 824 | 487 909 483 476 909 487 471 593 631 631 727 648 821 586 818 687 686 825 891 693 485 665 485 909 474 474 593 474 Caralluma fimbriata Caranx nigripennis an Cardiospermum halicacabum Carduus nutans ... Careya arborea.. i ues Carpesium Hbetanatdies! cernuum ‘es Carpodacus erythrinus roseatus Carthamus lanatus —— oxyacantha... --—_—- —— tinctorius Casarca ferruginea Cassia auriculata Cassia fistula “ Castalius rosimon rosimon Castanopsis Catachrysops strabo Catla catla Catopsilia crocale —— --—— florella gnoma ——-———--- pomona —— ——--- pyranthe minna Ceiba pentandra meee XXi PAGE 721, Celeenorrhinus leucocera leucocera ... — —— munda ... ——_—— pulomaya Celama centonalis — confusalis -—-—- fasciata — internella —teniata ... Cenobitz Centaurea ealcitrapa ————-- cyanus - — picris ome eee Centipeda rubicularis Centratherum anthelminticuin Centropus sinensis parroti Cephalanthera ensifolia Certhia discolor shanensis Cerura kandyia ... Ceryle rudis eaconeiantira Cethosia biblis tisamena ————- cyane Cheetoprocta odata ae Chaimarrornis leucccephalus ... Chalcites maculatus maculatus Chalcocelis albiguttata ... Chalcoscelides castaneipars Chalcosia phalaenaria Chalioides vitrea ee nt 679 497 909 632 812 633 633 590 633 632 634 483 909 909 fe 578 734 551 905 721 721 721 811 738 738 738 819 819 819 819 819 49] 635 §36 636 636 637 472 779 585 825 473 651 651 735 586 seh 825 825 818 826 xxii INDEX OF SPECIES Coladenia dan fatih Colias croceus edusina bee eugene eugene —— hyale hyale ladakensis Colotis etrida etrida Columba livia Coracias benghalensis ee ‘pervect oe Corchorus capsularis Corvus macrorhynchus Cosmotriche potatoria ... Cotula anthemoides - aurea eae Coturnix coromandelica - coturnix coturnix Creatonotus transiens Crepis acaulis Cricula trifenestrata Crocodilus palustris —= Crocopus phoenicopterus chloro- gaster. Croton bonplandianum ———- - pauperulum - sparsiflorus Cuculus canorus -- ——- bakeri ——-- -——-- - canorus -——— micropterus micropterus Culicicapa ceylonensis calochrysaea ... Cuon javanicus Se ——- ————- dukhunensis Cupha erymanthis lotis -Curetis acuta dentata - A Cursorius coromandelicus arora licus Cutia nipalensis nipalensis Cyanops franklinii ramsayi Cybium commersonii Cyclops ; Cyclosia macularia -- panthona ~—- papilionaris Cynodon dactylon Cynopterus sphinx Cynthia crota erota _ Cyprinus putitora ——_-——-- tor | Cypris cylindrica | oY PAGE Chaptia aenea aenea ae ss. i oe Charadrius dubius curonicus ... . 484 = —_—— jerdoni sicih iat Se Charaxes fabius fabius 5 oic09) iene 120 % - sulphureus ... es Oy, ————- marmax oe eas soot 3047 ——_———- polyxena hierax ... <2 646 ‘Cheilanthus mysorensis...- — ... i790 Chelidorhynx hypaxanthum .... — .... 588 Chelifer nee “ie Ppeeont Vie Cheromettia aparece Ae case aR ———-——-- lohor bathe rie ce teas yOeo Chersonesia rahria rahrioides..... .... 650 —- —— risa sis ies sab OOO) Chilades laius laius ane is Progr Wists) ‘Chilasa agestor govindra uke ten dad - - clytia clytia oe Se ge Chilena strigula ... oe Jen v5 Oe Chilenus undulatus sie eats wns, O08 Chionzema bianca ees ne dey ole — javanica... wwe = 8319 ——_———- pitana a 6 wee O19 Chloroxylon swietenia .. cay ee O09 Choaspes benjaminii Sarithtonaeon eo Choriotes nigriceps Ree ae SoA ease: to. Chrysanthemum indicum sft Meee O80 — ———-— COrONATIUM 2 Ose Chrysocolaptes festivus ~~... ... 470 Cichorium intybus —_... os: 640, 680 Te —— endivia seis 9, eee O39 -——-——— neanum ... i ne) OL] Ciconia cconia subsp? ha, eer MASH Cimex rotundatus a ss (we OOS Circaétus ferox ferox ... ve ot ATG Circus aeruginosus aeruginosus ost een ———cineraceus ., ase 497 eee macrourus Oy see hee 477, 497 Cirrhina mrigala SMe tee Jol, 553 Cirrochroa fasciata ae a Set OL —— neris olivacea ae glee esa a ovo) | — tyche mithila bee ee Ose Cispia alba ae Sp ets ist ooze Clamator jacobinus pica Wee cee ait. mma Clangula hyemal's we ee ft TOO On: Clania cramerii ... fers ae eae Gestrictoney, Wa tat ele eT Clytostoma callistegicides eae ements Cnicusiarvensis 229 0 ae eat _sinensisize: oem te.) Med Cocos aiiciferas eur ce cicemegee “905 —— -——-—— var, spicata asi ih eee OG ss Sea -marginata ., Cyrestis cocles Cocles),.6 PAGE 739 722 722 Tea 72h 722 477 497 472 877 580 823 641 642 478 478 820 642 824 743 477 573 3/3 573 471 592 529 592 588 693 694 651 736 484 584 02 503 672 818 818 818 680 811 651 521 a2) 799 799 650 Cyrestis periander periander ... -- thyodamas ganescha thyodamas -—— Dafila acuta Dalbergia latifolia Danais aglea melanoides - chrysippus ——-—- limniace mutina - melissa septentrionis - plexippus - tytia sita Dasychira bhana --- complicata ——_——--- dalbergiz ——_——--- grotei ————-- horsfieldi ————--- mendosa ——-——-- moerens -————.-- pudibunda ————-- securis ——_——--- thwaitesi ————--- varia : Delias belladonna norenelaii CllCHATIS «2. sanaca sanaca thysbe pyramus ... Delichon urbica Delphinus delphis Dendrocitta formosa Dendrocygna javanica ... Desmeocreera fasciata Deudoryx epijarbas ancus Diacrisia lubricipeda — - lutea ———- mendica — —-—— obliqua ——-——- rhodophila ——. —- sannio —_———-- strigatula ————-- subfascia ——-—- urticae Diagora nicevillei ———— persimilis persimilis ... -- ———-—- zella Diczum ignipectus ignipectus Dichorragia Dicoma tomentosa Dicranura himalayana — vinula Betioes pista latifolia Dictyoploca cachara ..,. INDEX OF SPECIES PAGE 488, 650 728 650 488 909 722 722 722 722 122 122 521 821 821 821 821 821 821 821 821 821 821 720 720 720 720 590 508 580 900 825 GOT 520 820 820 820 820 820 320 820 820 725. 648 12/ 592 | 648 © —_— eee 643 825 825 642 824: | Dictyoploca simla es aon Dilipa morgiana Ave eee Dinara ee Diospyros mielenonylen ——-- tomentosa Dissemurus p. grandis ... D‘ssoura episcopus episcopus Dodona dipeea nostia -- durga —-—--- egeon ie -- eugenes eugenes — venox -- henrici deodata - longicaudata ... -- Ouida ouida Dodonza viscosa ; Doleschallia bisaltide indica Doronicum falconeri — hookeri —— roylei Doxantha capreolata cs Drapetodes fratercula ... aoe Dryobates atratus ———-- hardwickii arden ee Genois ee ——_—_— w= --———-- nanus Ducula badia griseicapilla Dudusa nobilis... aie eas Dysodia viridatrix Echinops echinatus Echis carinata Eclipta alba Egretta alba —- gerzetta oareita — intermedia intermedia Elanus coeruleus vociferus Elephantopus scaber Emilia fammea —_— - sonchifolia Enhydra fluctuans Enthereea knyvetti Entomothera coromanda pore aaial Epicopeia mencia Epipactis latifolia Epiplema latifasciata —— quadricaudata Epizygeena cashmirensis Erasmia pulchella Eriboea arja _ - ——- athamas eae ak hee ‘delphis: "=. a ae 824 818 818 647 647, 726 o9e 647 XxiV INDEX OF SPECIES PAGE Eriboea dolon dolon a ee eR CAS) ——--grandis ... oc ves BOA, —_—— - —-- magniplaga oe see 1 A047 -eudamippus nigrobasalis ... 647 —- moori sandakanus ... em O47, —-——-— narccea lissainei a vee O47 -- schreiberi assamensis ces OA Erebia annada ceca _... me an tee hyagriva ... eas os neice) hybrida_... ae ee oho kalinda kalinda ... a eee CSS) ——— Hitmaloninmalarc. 7 ete AZO scanda scanda ... * SAS ——-— shallada shallada soy hot E25 Ergolis ariadne pallidior es ae to) - merione assama eh coy oou - ————- tapestrina ... aol Erigeron asteroides re ae ... 840 ———— canadensis... ae .. 840 Eriogyna pyretorum .... se .. 824 Erolia temminckii Fe ae fy a, 480 Eryx johnii & se eee Bas ee ete) Esacus recurvirostris ... Me ew eo Eterusia edea ... ms ne Ole ———— distincta o aa . ols —— —— pulchella sie ie a0 OLS ——_——_ risa ae wee ie el OS Ethulia conyzoides ane a .. 840 Euarctia proserpina ... ae ere Ole Euaspa milionia a sis se yoo Euchloe ausonia daphelis oe ane alg Euchromia horsfieldi_... oe Sel), POLS Euchromia polymena ... oe HOLS Euchrysops cnejus nee ; i ee! —- —- contracta ponte Bie rales —_—_———-- pandava pandava seo oe: Eudynamis scolopaceus scolopaceus. 471 Eugenia jambolana ses ae see | Oke Eumenis mniszechii baldiva ... we > oe ———— parisatis parsis er Ssenee Eumyias thalassina thalassina oa oes) Eunetta falcata ... %e ae Boe SE) Eupatorium Tioroesetioeress fs .. 841 ——- triplinerve... ‘AS . 842 Euphlycta erastria Ss se oe 1 OLO Euphorbia a ae ne O80 —_—— apaCone niece eae ee) LO ———-—— oreophila ... a see O70 ——_——_ —— perbracteata sis eee oy Es) ————-rothiana ... ane ee OYAG) ~-—_—_ —— royleana se ane er 8576 PAGE Euphorbia striatella 3/5 Euploea core core Bes sos ose NovieG - —— vermiculata dia ~ mulciber mulciber 722 Euproctis apicalis 822 ————- atrosquama ... 822 —— —- bimaculatus ... 622 ———_——— decussata ... 822 ————-- diplaga 822 -—_————-- fraterna 822 - fulvipuncta veo ee — —- guttata 822 ———-——-- sulphurescens 822 ——-——- vitellina 822 Euripus halitherses 648 Eupterote fabia ... 823 ————--- mollifera 823 Euthalia anosia anosia ... 648 — — cocytus satrapaces 648 ae evelina evelina 649 ———— garuda anagama 727 ——_— — — - garuda 648 ——— jahnu jahnu 648 ———_— jama verena 648 ——-— julii sedeva 648 ———— lepidea sthavara te - 648 ———— lubentina indica die 648, 727 ——— mahadeva binghami... 648 — —— merta eriphyle 648 — nara shania 649 — patala patala . 727 -—- taooana 649 —— —— phemius 648 --——-. — pratti cooperi ... 649 ———-~- sahadeva narayana ... 649 ———— telchinia ee ae 648 Eutropiichthys vacha 556 Everes argiades indica ... 732 dipora ua 732 parrhasius Serine 86 hse Excalfactoria chinens’s chinensis 478 Falco chicquera chicquera 476 ——- jugger 476 ——- subbuteo see 476 ——- tinnunculus Eamumedine 476 Feronia elephantum ... ase 909 Fierasfer mee 495 Francolinus pictus “0 482 ——- pintadeanus Siysncpen 392 —-—- pondicerianus interpositus. 482 Franklinia gracilis 589 Frerea indica Fulica atra atra ... 3 Galerucida bicolor ee eb Galleria mellonella Gallinula chloropus indicus Galloperdix lunulata Gallus bankiva robinsoni sonneratii Gambusia Garrulax moniliger . Gegenes nostradamus eens Gekko gecko eae Gelochelidon nilotica nieces Gerbera piloselloides Glaucidium brodiei tubiger Glossocardia bosvallia .. Glossogyne pinnatifida ... Glottis nebularia Gnaphalium luteo-album Gonepteryx aspasia zaneka ——- rhamni nepalensis Grangea maderaspatana Grauculus macei siamensis Grewia hirsuta — pilosa Guizotia abyssinica Gymnosporia montana Gynura pseudo-china Gyps indicus subsp. ? ——- fulvus fulvescens ... Habenaria aitchisonia ... —— edgeworthii intermedia ... Haematornis cheela Halcyon smyrnensis fusca — —-—— ———- smyrnensis Haliaétus leucogaster -leucoryphus ... Haliastur indus indus Halone sinuata Haplochilus lineatus Hardwickia binata INDEX OF SPECIES PAGE 679 482 878 605 482 478 593 478 673 580 741 763 484 842 593 843 843 485 843 72 721 844 589 909 909 844 909 845 476 475 781 780 780 476 543 473 661, 664 476 476 | 819 672 909 Harpactes erythrocephalum Brycaroce: phalum Hasora alexis alexis Helianthus annuus Hilicteres isora Heliophorus Paceaciesic coruscans —— bakeri —_—. oda . —————= —— sena evo eee 593 738 845 909 735 735 735 735 Hemichelidon ferruginea sibirica fuliginosa Hemidactylus —-— - brooki ~ flaviviridis frenatus ... -———_————- maculatus - prashadi Hemiprocne coronata Hemiramphus Henicurus leschenaulti pace schistaceus . Hepialiscus Herminium aneusetOlium Herona marathus marathus Herpestes urva Herpornis xantholeuca mntislenens. Hestina nama Heterophasia Hicieitese Cana... Heterophragma roxburghii Hieracium virosum Hieraétus fasciatus fasciatus ... Hierococcyx sparveroides varius Himantopterus Himantopus aunantoas ecentopust Hiptage madablota Hirundapus giganteus indicus Horaga onyx onyx - viola at Huphina nerissa phryne Hyarotis adastrus praba Hydrophasianus chirurgus Hypacanthis spinoides ambiguus Hypocheeris glabra Hypolimnas bolina ——-- misippus ... Hypoteenidia striata gularis Ibis leucocephalus Ictinaétus malayanus perniger Illiberis Indarbela Penne ————_- dea : ——-—— - quadrinotata — theivora Indobatrachus trivialis ——_—— pusillus ... Inula grantioides ——- graveolens ———- racemosa ——- royleana ese mi7o0. foley RAV PAGE 587 587 €63 756 749, 758 757 752 sf 474 497 586 586 S27) 773 648 893 584 648, 727 582 812 846 476 092 471 818 484 909 593 131 737 720 740 se 409 590 846 , 729 650, 728 482 486 899 818 827 827 827 827 801 799 847 847 847 847 XXV1 Iraota timoleon timoleon Ismene jaina jaina Issoria sinha sinha Ixias marianne ——- pyrene satadra Ixos maclellandi tickelli Ixulus humilis clarkii Iynx torquilla torquilla ... Jamides bochus bochus Jurinea macrocephala ... Justicia echioides Kallima inachus huegeli — limborgi Ketupa zeylonensis leschenaulti Labeo calbasu ate's micropthalmus ... rohita Lactuca remotiflora - runcinata — scariola ... Laelia calamaria ... -— suffusa Laggera alata Lampides boeticus Lampracheenium monocephatdm Lanius coliuroides coliuroides excubitor pallidirostris nasutus tricolor Laringa horsfieldii glaucescens Launzea aspleniifolia chondrilloides ... ————. glomerata —_————. pinnatifida -—— nudicaulis Lebadea martha attenuata Lebeda nobilis ——__ INDEX OF SPECIES PAGE Jol, Leioptila melanoleuca ceeanontens re Lenodora vittata ... Leonotis nepetzefolia Leonurus globosus 3 Lepidocephalocythys mermalie. Leptosia nina nina Lethe confusa confusa ... ——- goalpara narkanda ——- insana insana ——- jalaurida jalaurida ——- maitrya ——-~ nicetas ——- pulaha pulaha —--- rohria dyrta -——-— sidonis yaivarta .,, age 736 Lethe verma verma ——- yama yama Leuccas aspera leucoma marginalis -— subvitrea Libythea ‘lepita lepita ———-——— _myrrha sanguinalis — narina rohini ... Limenitis danava - daraxa ... -————- dudu ——--— procris procris -— trivena pallida Liothula omnivora Liparis rostrata Lissemys punctata granosa Lithosia apicalis .. ——--- caniola ... ———---— complana -———-— depressa -- eugenla ... -———-- griseola .. -~ lurideola -— lutarella ———-——=— atana -— palliatella -— sericea -— sororcula -- tumida Lobipluvia malabarica ... Lobivanellus indicus indicus Loepa katinka Loranthus longiflorus Lutjanus Lutra lutra saenton - —-— vulgaris at Lutrogale perspicillata .. Lyceena kasyapa -—-—-— pavana ... — phloeas indicus — flavens Lyceenopsis albocoerulea ———- --- argiolus kollari | ——-— cardea dilecta ———_ -—— huegelii huegelii ... ——-—— ladonides gigas ———--——_ puspa gisca -—— vardhana Lygosoma sp. Lymantria ampla ———— —-—— Sica PAGE 652, 652, 484, 724 724 796 821 821 731 731 652 727 649 649 649 727 826 779 747 819 820 819 819 819 820 820 820 819 820 820 820 819 899 484 824 910 497 517 317 515 517 734 734 734 734 732 133 732 732 732 732 732 663 822 Lymantria grandis --— incerta ———-- — lunata ——_—__-- — obfuscata ——---—— obsoleta Lymnocryptes minimus Machlolophus spilonotus Sine Macroplectra nararia signata Meenas maculifascia Mahasena graminivora ... ——- —— theivora Malacosoma neustria Mangifera indica Maniola davendra davendra -—- lupinus cheena -— pulchra pulchra Mareca penelope : Matricaria chamomilla .., — Megalaima virens virens Megalops ... : —- — coprmoides Melanitis ismene ... — leda ismene ———— phedima galkissa Melitaea arcesia sindura Melochia corchorifolia ... Merops orientalis orientalis - superciliosus javanicus Mesia argentauris Metanastria hyrtaca Metopidius indicus Microglossa volubilis Microscelis psaroides concolor Migoplastis alba Mikania scandens Milvus migrans govinda Mimusops hexandra Minla ignotincta ... Miresa argentifera. ~——— bracteata brunnea --—-—— fulgida thermistis Mitra episcopalis Molpastes chrysorrhoides Riese. Monticola rufiventris ——--———. solitaria Moringa pterigosperma Motacilla cinerca melanope vo? INDEX OF SPECIES PAGE 498 , 822 822 822 822 822 485 580 $26 826 820 826 XXV1i PAGE Murraya koenigii 909 Muscicapula hodgsoni ... eon ——-—--———- hyperythra ypecyenre as) 2557 ————--——-- melanoleuca melanoleuca. 587 —-——-——-- sapphira io OOs Mus rattus rufinus 5o2 os 491, 503 Mustilia phaeopera : 823 Mycalesis francisca sanatana ... 723 ——---— lepcha lepcha 723 ——-——- mineus mineus 723 ——~——— perseus blasius 723 —- — typhlus 723 —— -—— visala visala 723 Myophoneus eugeni 587 Nacaduba nora nora 734 Nadata niveiceps 824 Nagoda nigricans ; . 829 Napothera brevicaudata vennin2i 582 Narosa conspersa 825 - doenia... ... 825 Natrix piscator 748 Nemachilus 672 Neopheosia fasciata ahi SSsgr a OO Neophron percnopterus ginginianus... 476 Neottia listeroides 781 Nephrolepis sp. a 910 Neptis ananta ananta 728 = ochraced 650 anjana nashona ... 650 columella ophiana 649 dindinga assamica 650 - harita 650 hordonia Grote 650 hylas adara .- 650 —- -—-astola ae oF 659. 728 ——_—_ ——- varmona 728 jumbah jumbah ... 649 magadha khasiana 650 mahendra 728 manasa See 650 nandina susruta ... 650 narayana narayana 741 sankara quilta 650 ——— - sankara 728 soma soma 650 ——— yerburyi shania ... 659 —_ — yerburyl 728 zaida zaida 728 Netria viridescens » 825 Nettapus corcmandelianus ota arin lianus Green 487 XXViii INDEX OF SPECIES PAGE Nettion crecca crecca ... fas .. 488 - - formosum es ats aes) 2p1GOO Niganda ... ae sae re te Niltava grandis grardis ner oe Stele) - - macgrigorie ... a ise Bele} Nincx scutulata lugubris a iat 4/5 Nisaétus cirrhatus cirrhatus ... site AG Nola argentalis ... ge ahe Shoe te) — cucullatella ... cae ae bo 6 tele) Norraca =~... se Sree OLA. Notocrypta raMihaen an SOS iso et) Notonia grandiflora... se Mes S02 Neurosigma doubledayi nonius nah ~ O49 Nyctemera coleta Sar a, ae Oo. -——-—— plagifera... a gr oek Nycteribosca gigantea ... a ee Pehle Nyroca ferina ferina... ra sere G488 - fuligula ... wale see Saad —- ———- fuligula ate va 488 — rufa rufa... sss ise as > 488 Ocinara dilectula se oa hie nove — varians ... cist ae sOTIROZS — waringi ... A -eupoee Ocypode eer atonuehelna, a: afm Odontoptilum angulata sura ... RAMEE (Enopopelia tranquebarica tranque- baticas 5.3 aN Pe: ie) Oeonistis entella ... ite Tae Aneae ire yd US) Oiketicus tertius ... Ose oe ” 9 Cachar. Nagpur. Poona. Darjeeling. Mawlik. Muktesar. Ranikhet. Bombay. Karachi. Srinagar. Wellington. Bombay. Jaipur. Cawnpore. Coimbatore. Ajmer. Allahabad. Madura. Deolali. Baroda. Tejgaon (Dacca). Calcutta. Pyinmana. Calcutta. Kasauli Nanking. Bangkok. Indcre. Hanover, U.S.A. Karachi. Dehra Dun. Palghat. Ahmedabad. LIST OF MEMBERS COLLEGES AND SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTIONS—continued Gwalior, Victoria'College, The Principal Haffkine-Institute, The Director Indian Lac Research Institute Indian Forest Ranger College, The Director Institute of Plant Industry, The Director Intermediate College Association Islamia College, The Principal Karnatak College, The Principal King Institute, The Director ... La Martiniere College, The Principal Lingnan University Library Ludhiana, Government College, The Principal Madras Christian College, The Librarian Maharaja’s College, The Principal Medical College, The Principal Mrs, A. V. N. College, The Principal Nowrosjee Wadia College, The Principal Oakgroove School, The Principal Osmania University Coilege Library Osmania University, Head of Botany Pittapur Rajah’s College, The Principal Presidency College, The Principal se Queen Mary’s High School _... Jee sot Rajaram College, The Principal Ae Se Ravenshaw College, The Principal Royal College of Medicine, The Professor Royal Institue of Science, The Principal ... Samaldas College, The Professor of Botany Secondary Training College, The Principal St. Berchman’s College, The Principal St. Mary’s High School, The Rector Trivandrum, H. H. Maharaja’s College for Women University College, ‘Che Principal University College, The Principal Vanita Vishram Training College Victoria Technical Institute, The camer Wilson College, The Principal Women’s Christian College, The Natural Sciences. Woodstock School, The Biology Teacher Colombo Museum, The Librarian Colvin, Lt.-Col. E. J. D. (1.4., C.1.E.) Congreve, C. R. T. Connell, F.-J. a Connor, Maj.-General Sir eas (Wes, D.S.O., F.R.C.S., I.M.S.) : a wee Sc Conservator of Forests a ' Conservator of Forests, Bhopal State Conservator of Forests, Cochin Government Conservator of Forests, Working Plan Circle Conservator of Forests, The Chief Conservator of Forests, The Chief ase xliii Gwalior. Bombay. Namkum. Dehra Dun. Indore. Bangalore. Peshawar. Dharwar. Guindy. Lucknow. Canton. Ludhiana. ‘Tambaram. Ernakulam. Vizagapatam. Poona. Mussoorie. Hyderabad, Dn. Cocanada. Madras. Bombay. Kolhapur. Cuttack. Baghdad. Bombay. Bhavnagar. Bombay. Changanacherry. Bombay. Trivandrum. Rangoon. Colombo. Bombay. Nagpur. Bombay. Madras. Mussoorie. Colombo. England. Nilgiris. Karachi. England. Baroda State. Bhopal. Trichur. Maymyo. Bombay. Srinagar. xliv LIST OF MEMBERS Conservator of Forests Conservator of Forests Conservator of Forests Corlett, J. N. ie ue ae Cowasji Jehangir Sir, (Bart. K.C.1I.E., O.B.E ) Cowper, G. St. John mae Cox, ©... C.A(Ca hee Pres ,ahZ.S)) i ae Coyajee, Miss Ratnabai H. sce so ate Craker, P. W. (0.B.E.) A (DEAS 4) te Crawford, William G. Critchley, G. = aot Crofton, R. MS (Cis. C:S3). = Croix; -O.4H de" st... Crombie, A.(Dea(C.1.2., Currie, A. J. a Currie, M.M.L. (L.C.S.) : Dabholkar, Lt.-Col. A. Y. (1.M.s. $.) Dalal, Merwanjee Bomanjee oe ast Dalal, M.oR2 M. Po “6 L.C.S.) Danta State, H. H. The Mataranad Sahib Bahadur (K.C.S.1.) ; a re Darjeeling, The Gruater, Nat. tice Mus. Daver, Framroze, A. Ae Daver, The Houle Mr. J, D. (Bae ata) Davies srl Geb (AR. SM, ST.MoloP. Dae Davies, Major V. K. N. (1.4.) Pavis,, DD. (G.8:S.) Davis, The Hon’ble Sir Gaarey (Atoms C, S.) Davis, P. W. (1.F.S.) Davis, Dr. W. St. T. Dee, Lionel es De Haas, C.P.Ji. tes Delacour, Mons. Jean ae ante Deo, Raja Sri Balavadra Maran Bhunj DeRhe Philipe, G. W. V. (F.E.S.) The Besch- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, affungsamt ue sh ata Deutsches Entomologisches Institut der Kaiser Wilhelm Dewas Sr., H. H. Nanaia vate Saran Dewas Junior, H. H. the Maharaja Saheb of Dewas Junior, Shreemant Capt. Y.B. Pawar, Yuvaraj, Dewas Junior Branch eae eae sce Dickins, M. J. eee Dickson, Lt.-Col. H. R. P. (c.1. =) AF Dinajpur, Maharaja Jagadish Nath Ray ... Director of Museums, S. S. & F. M. States Dods, W. K. ey Donald, C. H. (F.z. 8.) aoe Donald, Capt. J. O.S. Donovan, Lt.-Col. C. (1.m.s.) Douglas, I. A. (D.S.P.) Orissa. Holkar State. N.W.F.P. England. Bombay. Nagpur. Bombay. London. Tharrawaddy. Bombay. Hyderabad, Dn. Nagpur. Madras. London. Poona. Bombay. ») Danta-Bhavangadh. Darjeeling. Bombay. Khaur. Bombay. Karachi. Coimbatore. Cachar. Coimbatore. Java. France. Keonjhargarh. London. Berlin. Dewas Sr. Dewas Ir. Bombay. Persia. Dinajpur. Kuala Lumpur. Calcutta. Dharmsala. Tank. England. Dehra Dun. LIST OF MEMBERS Drake-Brockman, Major R. F. H. (R.A.) Dubash, J. K. ace toe Duke, A. H. Duke, Lt.-Col. C. L. B. (M.c., ae Dunbar-Brander, A. A. (0.B.0. I.F.S.) Dunbar, U. B. H. Duncan, Lt.-Col. D. L. Duncan, John E. (P.w D.) Dunsdon, A. C. Durand, C. H.S. Dyson, R. A. : East India Railway European facatate Kates, K. R. (1.P., F.Z.S., M.B.O.U.) Edwards, M. Vincent (1.F.S.) Eliot, John N. 5 Eliott-Lockhart, Capt. Wed. Ellis, Ralph Emerson, C. A. Emerson, Gerald H. (1.C.S.) Emerson, Major J. Etaiyapuram, The Rajah of _ Evans, Col. G. H. (C.1.£., F.L.S.) Evans, Brigadier W. H. (C.S.I., C.I.E., D.S.O.) Ezra, Sir Alwyn (F.R.G.S., F.Z.S.) Fawcus, L.R. (1.C.S.) Featherstone, Gordon B. Ferrar, Lt.-Col, M. L. (1.4., 0. BE.) Finnis, N. D’O ae Becton Cries (RE) see Fletcher, Thos. Bainbrigge (F.R.E.S., F.L.S.) Fooks, H. A. ; ae Foot, A. E. Forrington, Arthur Fountaine, Miss Margaret, (F.E.S. a Fraser, A. G. (I.M.D.) Fraser, Duncan Fraser, K. H. Fraser, L. J. D. French Indo-China, His Majesty S. M. Bao-Dai, Emperor of Annam Frend, G. V. R. Gabb, H. B. oes ie ao Gardiner, J. E. aan “By. C 2 Mic Canny ve, scene cence oe ae eee 678 XXV On Prerea tdiia~ cBy. IRD eb Omlbeyenes cae eee eee 679 XXVI.—Cn the Occurrence of Cichorium Intybus Livn. (Chicory) in Hyderabad, Deccan. By M. Abdus Salam. (With a plate) 680 Prare se Journ. Bompay Nar. Hist. Soc. John Bale, Sons & Curnow, Lt4 London. GOLDEN SHOWER. Bignonia venusta, Ker. (5% nat. size) JOURNAL OF THE Bombay Natural History Society. 1940. Vion. elem, INO ais SOME BEAUTIFUL INDIAN CLIMBERS AND SHRUBS. BY ING Wea eOR. MeAc& DaSC., FrlaS: 9 Tak. Sc Forest Botanist, AND M. B. RAIZADA, M.SC., Assistant Botanist, Forest Research Institute, Dehra Dun. PAR® slUlr (Continued from Vol. xli, No. 2 (1939), p. 220). (With one coloured and 3 black and white plates and 5 text-figures). Bignonia Linn. The genus Bignonia was erected in honour of Abbé Jean Paul Bignon (1662-1743), court librarian to Louis XIV of France. Systematic botanists in the past have held very divergent views regarding the delimitation of this genus and modern research has resulted in the genus, as conceived by Bentham and Hooker with its 150 species, being broken up and the majority of its species transferred to other genera. We would warn our readers that the species, hitherto known as Bignonia, found in our Indian gardens and treated in this article, have all, with the exception of one, been placed in other genera of the Bignoniaceae. The species of the genus, as known to horticulturists, have been in high favour for many years on account of the beauty and 454 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XLI profusion of their flowers. They are mainly extensive climbers and require generous space to be seen at their best. The wood of the stem is very peculiar. Young stems do not show any anomalous structure, but in old stems the wood 1s cleft by wedge-shaped radially projecting masses of bast, which are regularly arranged in multiples of four. Those with four wedges are called ‘Cross Vines’ in South America and are regarded with superstitious awe. Some of these climbers grow to an immense size, and these alternating wedges of bast and wood enable them to withstand twisting and bending without fracture. Climbing is accomplished in various ways—by twining round a support, by the possession of tendrils, by the rotation of the petioles, or by means of aerial roots. The species treated in this article make use of all these methods, either singly or in various com- | binations. The possession of tendrils is a very common feature. Tendrils are always modified leaves or leaflets. In the well- known Bignonia venusta Ker. |Pyrostegia venusta (Ker-Gawl.) Miers], the foliage seems at first sight to consist of a pair of opposite leaves upon a common peduncle the apex of which is continued and ends in three filiform branches. The correct inter- pretation of this arrangement is that the leaf is compound and consists of three leaflets, the terminal of which is modified as a branched tendril. The tendril after attachment to a support con- tracts spirally, and not only raises the stem but also permits a certain elasticity in the attachment of the liane to its support and thereby minimises the danger of damage from storms. The tips of the tendrils after attachment often become transformed into small disks. The leaves of the species may be simple or compound and are exstipulate, though the development of small leaves in the axils of true leaves often simulate foliaceous stipules. The flowers are arranged in terminal or axillary pairs or racemes or in corymbose fascicles. The calyx is of combined sepals with obscure lobes or teeth. The corolla is large and _ showy, zygomorphic and usually bell- or trumpet-shaped, less often cylindrical, rarely 2-lipped, 5-lobed. The stamens are five in number but the posterior one is usually rudimentary and represented by a small stipe. The other four are paired, two with long fila- ments, and two with short; a condition which is termed didyna- mous. The anther cells are usually divergent at the base. The ovary is seated upon a disk which may be cupular or platter-shaped, and is two-celled. The ovules are numerous and are attached to axile placentas. The style is simple with two flattened stigmatic lobes. The fruit is usually a two-valved capsule. In species of this genus whose life history has been studied it is found that the stigmas and pollen become mature at different times and that the stigma-lobes close before the pollen from the same flower can fertilise them. Cross fertilisation seems to be the rule in the genus and in the case of those species imported into India from abroad the agent of pollination seems to be absent in this country, for very few of our exotic species set fruit. ser eae ae reac sail ie eee FRIES mn ; uULIq] E4YI(, JS940OH MIN © (19x vIsSnuaA DiUOUsI_g) IOMOYS UEP[OD IL SUE VAG Clete ‘90S ‘LSIL{ ‘LVN AvaWog ‘Nunof{ SOME BEAUTIFUL INDIAN CLIMBERS AND SHRUBS 455 KEY TO THE SPECIES. Tendrils 3-partite. Corolla cylindrical oes B. venusia. Corolla swollen upwards. /Tendrils clinging by disks ee B. capreolata, Tendrils clinging by claws or hooks B. unguts-cati. Tendrils simple. Disk present; flowers rose with darker stripes; leaves shining ets ane Sas ae Disk absent; flowers pale mauve, purplish with a white or yellowish throat; leaves dull a“ ee . spectosa. B. magnifica. Bignonia venusta Ker. [Pyrostegia venusta (Ker-Gawl.) Miers]. Golden Shower. (venusta is Latin for ‘charming’, ‘beautiful’). Fig. 1.—Bignonia venusta Ker. Description.—An evergreen plant climbing extensively by means of tendrils. Stems stout, angled. Leaves compound, consisting of two leaflets with a terminal branched tendril, or sometimes of three leaflets. Leaflets ovate or ovate-oblong, bluntly and shortly acuminate, wedge-shaped at the base, 2—4 in. long, glabrous on the upper surface, shortly and sparsely hairy beneath. Flowers very showy, arranged in corymbose cymes or racemes, drooping. Calyx small, campanulate in shape, with five, very small, hairy teeth. Corolla tubular, 3 in. long, gradually expand- ing to the mouth where it ends in five linear lobes which are valvate in the bud (1.e., they touch by their margins), the point 456 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. “SOCIERY,. Vol. Xi of junction being very evident as each lobe has white villous margins. On opening the lobes curve backwards and form two lips, the upper of which is 2-, the lower 3-lobed. Stamens four, in pairs, with filaments of different lengths. The longer pair is well exserted from the tube, the shorter reaches the base of the lobes. Ovary linear, seated on a fleshy disk. Style very long, almost as long as the stamens. This plant does not produce fruit in this country. Flowers.—Cold season. Distribution.—Indigenous to Brazil, but now a very common cultivated plant in all tropical countries. Gardening.—Probably no plant in the world presents so gorge- ous an appearance as Bignonia venusta when in full bloom during Jan.—Feb. The plants are not fastidious as to soil but a good fibrous loam, to which one-third cow or sheep manure has been added, suits them admirably. Propagation is effected by cuttings of the wood taken in late spring and inserted in sand preferably under a bell jar. It is suitable for pergolas in the open, porches, verandahs and the like. Bignonia capreolata Linn. [Doxantha capreolata (Linn.) Miers]. Trumpet Flower. Cross Vine. Quarter Vine. (capreolata is a Latin word meaning ‘winding’ or ‘twining’). Fig. 2.—Bignonia capreolata Linn. SOME BEAUTIFUL INDIAN CLIMBERS AND SHRUBS 457 Description.—An extensively climbing, glabrous species. The older stems in section exhibit a perfect cross of four wedge-shaped insertions of bast in the wood. The leaves are opposite and compound, consisting of an ovate or oblong, acuminate and sub- cordate pair of stalked entire leaflets and a compound tendril which clings by small disks. Stipules are absent but accessory leaves or leaflets in some of the axils simulate foliaceous stipules. The flowers are borne on pedicels which are arranged in fascicles of 2-5 on axillary spurs. The calyx is membranous, green, ‘2 in. long. The corolla is tubular with a stout limb, 2 in. long, yellowish red in colour, rather lighter within. Flowers.—March—April. Does not set fruit in Dehra Dun. Distribution.—This climber is indigenous in North America, but is now extensively grown as an ornamental plant in the tropics om the Old) World: : Gardening.—This handsome vine is very suitable for covering walls, embankments and the like. Propagated by cuttings or layers of half matured wood. Bignonia unguis-cati Linn. Cat’s Claw (in Latin unguis cati). Fig. 3.—Bignonia unguis-cati Linn. Description.—An_ extensively climbing, slender, evergreen species. The leaves are opposite and compound, exstipulate. Leaflets 2, lanceolate or ovate-acuminate, cordate, 3 in. or less long; the terminal leaflet is represented by a three-partite claw-like 458 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XLI tendril,, the arms of which do not form disks after attachment. The flowers, which are a beautiful clear yellow in colour, with deeper yellow lines in the throat, are borne in pairs seated on slender peduncles in the axils of the leaves. Calyx ‘5 in. long, obtusely 5-lobed, membranous, bowl-shaped, with conspicuous veins. Corolla with a short tube and broadly ventricose limb with spreading lobes, 2-4 in. across and 2-2°5 in. long. Ovary linear, "25 in. long, seated on a fleshy disk. Style curved, 1 in. long. Flowers.—April. Occasionally a second flush in Aug. Fruits. July. Distribution.—This climber is a frequently cultivated plant in India. It is a native of Argentina. Gardening.—An extensive climber reaching the tops of the tallest trees and forming masses of foliage and yellow flowers in pendent bunches. It sows itself freely in Dehra and also probably else- where. Easily raised from seed or by layers of cuttings. Bignonia speciosa R. Grah. [Clytostoma callistegisides (Cham.) Baill. |. (speciosa is Latin for ‘handsome’). Fig. -4.~-Bignonia. speciosa’ R. Grah. Description.—An evergreen shrub, extensively climbing by means of tendrils. Leaves opposite, compound, consisting of two opposite, stalked. leaflets and a terminal unbranched tendril. Leaflets about 3 in. long, but may be longer, elliptic-oblong or ovate-acuminate Journ. Bompay Nat. Hist. Soc. Photo by N, L. Bor. Bignonia speciosa. R. Grah. New Forest, Dehra Dun. ‘und eiyaq ‘4s910O, MON ‘YeIQ ‘YW ‘vsoiveads vin0Uudig 409 °TN 49 010g SOME BEAUTIFUL INDIAN CLIMBERS AND SHRUBS 459 in shape, glabrous, shining, reticulated below; margins undulate; base subcordate, rounded or acute. Flowers large and showy, borne in pairs on a terminal peduncle. Calyx obliquely campanulate with 5 acute or subulate lobes. Corolla pubescent, about 3 in. long, limb 3 in. broad, broadly ventri- cose from a short yellowish tube, lilac rose or pale purple in colour, streaked inside with darker purple veins. Lobes five, broadly ovate or orbicular, the upper reflexed. Ovary seated on a fleshy disk with crenulate margins. Stamens included, didynamous; anther cells much divaricate. Pod 2°5 in. long, shortly oblong, densely covered with short spines. Flowers.—March—April. Fruits.—Cold season. Distribution.—Indigenous to tropical America, but now widely cultivated in the tropics of both hemispheres. Gardening.—This is a very showy and ornamental species best suited for training over trellis work or over fences and the like. Fasily raised, like most other species of the genus, by layers. Bignonia magnifica Bull. [Arrabidaea magnifica (Bull.) Sprague]. Fig, 5.—Bignonia magnifica Bull. Description.—A climbing shrub with branches compressed when young, terete when old, rather rough to the touch. Leaves com- pound, opposite, consisting of 2 leaflets and usually a tendril. Leaf- lets opposite, obovate oblong, obtuse at the tip, attenuate at the 460 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURALNMEIST. \SOCKETY, 1 V ol. XT base, rather dull on both surfaces, 3-5 in. long by 1°75-2°5 in. wide, membranous, glabrous, entire, with a short petiolule -1 in. long; nerves compressed above, prominent below. Tendril issuing between the leaflets, hooked, up to 6 in. long. Inflorescence of four-flowered, axillary or terminal, cymes. Flowers large, showy, almost sessile. Calyx gamosepalous, cupular- campanulate, very slightly narrowed above, olive green, truncate at the top or with a few teeth, shining within, dull without. Corolla large, up to 2°5 in. wide across the limb, purplish violet, mauve or light purple in colour, whitish or primrose in the throat with longitudinal purple veins. Tube tubular-infundibuliform, curved above the base, 2°5 in. long, 5-lobed, lobes orbicular, almost 1 in. in diameter. Stamens 4, didynamous, fifth a rudimentary stipe; filaments curved, inserted at the top of the narrow portion of the tube, swollen at the base and glandular, included; anthers widely divergent. Ovary superior, at the base of the tube; style 1-1°5 in. long with 2 stigmatic lobes. Flowers.—Cold season. Does not set fruit in India. Distribution.—Indigenous in Colombia, South America; now commonly cultivated in all tropical countries in the open and under glass in temperate climes. Gardening.—It is a free flowering handsome climber, bearing large flowers of a delicate mauve changing to rich crimson, with the throat of a light primrose colour. Suitable for growing on arches, pergolas and the like. Easily raised by layers or cuttings. (Tc be continued). THE HOG-BADGERS (ARCTONYX) OF BRITISH INDIA. BY RoE POCOCK,: FR: S.; British (Natural History) Museum. (With a text-figure). Hog-badgers are not found in Peninsular India, but although widely distributed to the north and east of the Bay of Bengal are nowhere plentiful. As E. H. Peacock remarked they are of rare occurrence in Burma. A few only were collected by the Mammal Survey in that country and both Crump and Baptista failed to secure them in Bhutan, Sikkim and Nepal. No detailed description of them is necessary since their general characters are well known; and the different kinds are superficially very much alike, being mainly distinguishable by size, by the luxuriance of the coat and by minor variations in colour, both the coat and colour being seasonally variable and the pattern of the head hardly ever quite alike in any two individuals. The skull and teeth are also subject to very remarkable individual variations, the skull more particularly in the degree of development of air-cells in the bones of the forehead and hind-palate which may alter its shape profoundly and the last two upper teeth differ more in size and shape within subspecific limits than in any other mammal known to me. The literature relating to the Hog-Badgers reveals great divergence of opinion regarding the status and nomenclature of the many forms that have been described, chiefly on account of the varied application of the name collaris, symbolising the type-species of the genus Arctonyx. In his account of the British Indian representatives Blanford, following Blyth, Anderson and W. L. Sclater, admitted two species, a larger, A. collaris, extending from the eastern Himalayas to Burma, and a smaller, A. taxoides, occurring in Assam and Arakan. Gray, however, had previously cited taxoides as a synonym of collaris. Wroughton, when dealing with the ‘Survey’ material, followed in r914 Blanford’s lead in adopting taxoides as the name for a valid species; but I have been unable to ascertain precisely what his conception of collaris was, except that he cited as represent- ing it a Q specimen from Karenni, which is obviously immature, and another, which I have not seen, from the Chin Hills. He inferred apparently from these that the total length of the skull does not exceed 135 mm, in collaris, whereas Blyth, Gray and 462 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HUST: (SOCTEPY,- Volar Blanford had included under that heading specimens with the skull surpassing 150 mm. in total length. Accepting Wroughton’s statement about the length of the skull in collaris and Anderson’s erroneous assertion that the type of isonyx Horsfield came from Tibet, G. M. Allen, in his revision of the Chinese Hog-Badgers, took collaris for the name of a southern Chinese, Tibetan and N. E. Himalayan form, with a skull of approximately the length given by Wroughton and quoted as synonyms of it albogularis given by Blyth in 1853 to a Tibetan specimen and obscurus given by Milne Edwards in 1868-1874 to one from E. Tibet. Although Allen gave no opinion about the status of taxoides or of the larger Hog-Badger identified by Blyth, Gray, Blanford and others as collaris, I infer that he would have regarded them as representing merely subspecies of collaris, since he assigned the Chinese Hog-Badgers to two subspecies of that species. ‘At all events Osgood, who accepted Allen’s designation of collaris, assigned the large Hog-Badgers of ‘Annam, Laos, and the Malay Peninsula to a subspecies for which he adopted the name A. collaris dictator, Thomas. Although there is not as yet, so far as I know, complete evidence of the intergradation of all the forms of Hog-Badger, I adopt the conclusion of my American colleagues that there is in Continental Asia but one species, A. collaris, represented by several subspecies ; but I differ from them in the assignation of some of the names. It has probably been my good fortune to see more examples of Hog-Badgers than any of my predecessors. The British Museum contains skins and skulls of all the described forms, except the north Chinese race leucolemus. In addition it has been my pri- vilege to examine the specimens in the Museum of the Bombay Natural History Society and in the Indian Museum, Calcutta and I am greatly indebted to the authorities of these institutions for the kind loan of them, especially to Dr. Baini Prashad, the Director for sending me the type of taxoides from Calcutta. My conclusions regarding the British Indian Hog -Badgers is that there are two distinguishable races, a smaller, collaris, and 4 larger for which a new name seems necessary, although it contains specimens erroneously, in my opinion, assigned to collaris by several previous: authors. The two may be briefly distinguished as follows : (a) Size small, head and body about 2 ft. long, eondylobasal length of skull not known to reach 120 mm., less than 5 inches; teeth smaller. collaris: (b) Size larger, head and body about 2% ft. long, condylobasal length of skull over 150 mm., or 6 inches in length; teeth larger. consul subsp. noy, THE HOG-BADGERS (ARCTONYX) OF BRITISH INDIA 463 Arctonyx collaris collaris F. Cuvier. Arctonyx collaris F. Cuvier, Hist. Nat. Mamm., pt. 51, pl., 1825 and of some subsequent authors but only in part; and not Arctonyx collaris collaris, G. M. Allen, Amer. Mus. Novit., no. 358, pp. 10-11, 1929 and Mamm. China and Mongolia, p. 404, 1938.* Arctonyx taxoides, Blyth, Journ. As. Soc. Beng., 22, p. 591, 1853. ‘Anderson, Zool. Res. Yunnan, p. 196, 1878; Blanford, Mamm. Brit. Ind., p. 180, 1888; W. L. Sclater, Cat. Mamm. Ind. Minis.) apt. 2,-p.1 26%, LOOT: Arctonyx isonyx (Hodgson MS.), Horsfield, Proc. Zool. Soc., HOSO pa 209, pl. Arctonyx collaris taraiyensis, Hodgson, Cat. Mamm. etc. ed., 2, p. 7, 1863 (no description). Locality of the type of collaris, ‘the hills between Bhutan and India’, cited by Wroughton as the Bhutan Duars; of taxoides, Assam; of isonyx and taraiyensis, the Sikkim Tarai. . Distribution.—The Sikkim Tarai, Bhutan Duars, Assam and perhaps Chittagong. Distinguished from the other British Indian race, which apparently replaces it in Burma, by its smaller size, the head and body being only about 2 ft. long or less, shorter tail and smaller skull, the length of which is only about 120 mm. or less; also by its noticeably thicker winter coat. From the Southern Chinese race A. c. albogularis by its shorter, less thickened winter coat and smaller skull the length of which in albogularis is about 135 mm. I have only seen four specimens that I assign to this race, namely the skin of the type of tsonyx, from the Sikkim Tarai, an immature skin from Darjiling (Calcutta) Museum), the skin and the skull of the type. of taxoides from Assam and of a specimen, received from the East India Co., entered as from ‘Bengal’ but marked on its stand as from Chittagong which was formerly included in that Province. | The restriction of the name collaris to this small Hog-Badger is based on the assumption that the type specimen from Bhutan Duars is probably racially the same as that of the type of isonyx from the Sikkim Tarai. I have seen no specimens from Bhutan and am not aware of a record of one from that district apart from Cuvier’s account based on a description sent to him by Duvaucel of a living specimen exhibited in the menagerie at Barrackpore and stated to have been brought from the ‘hills between Bhutan and India’. The type was probably not preserved and no measure- ments were given.. But the skin of the type of tsonyx is in the British Museum and in Hodgson’s MS., where the specimen is said to have come from the Sikkim Tarai, there is a fairly good figure of the skull which from its muscular moulding appears to * Since collaris is not, in my opinion, applicable to the Tibetan and Southern Chinese Hog-Badger, I adopt for that race the name albogularis Blyth, with obscurus Milne Edwards as a synonym; and, from an examination of the types, I entirely agree with Allen that the names orestes and incultus given by Thomas to Hog-Badgers from the Tsing Ling Mts., S, W, Shensi and from Chinteh in Anhwei respectively are also synonyms, 464 JOURNAL, BOMBAY..NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XLI be adult. Its measurements, entered below, are taken from these drawings said to be two-thirds natural size. I have also seen the type, skin and skull, of taxoides. There is nothing that I can detect in the skin, as preserved, to separate it systematically from that of tsonyx, although the ears, as stated by Blyth, seem to be a little smaller; and I do not attach to the cranial and dental characters, relied on by Blyth, Anderson and W. L. Sclater, the importance assigned to them by those authors. In the first place the skull is not fully adult, as it was stated to be, its basioccipital and naso-maxillary sutures being open and its temporal ridges 15 mm. apart. It is moreover abnormal in being ‘undershot’, the lower incisors projecting 5 mm. beyond the upper. The upper carnassial is admittedly unusual in shape, as W. L. Sclater said, although Blyth noted nothing peculiar about it; but the upper teeth of Arctonyx vary so remarkably individually in the same locality that the peculiarity is not, in my opinion, to be relied upon on the evidence of a single specimen. The external measurements in English inches of the specimens of this race were taken from dried skins, the type of isonyx is ‘made up’ in the conventional way from a formerly mounted specimen; that of taxoides is still mounted for exhibition. ‘In these the dimensions were taken ‘over the curves’. The third specimen from Bengal (? Chittagong) is now a flat skin, which was unstuffed a few years ago. They were probably stretched rather than shrunken by the manipulations to which they were subjected, which would make the dimensions of the head and body in life less rather than more than those indicated on the table. The external measurements in English inches of A. collaris collaris, taken from skins, and of A. c. consul, taken in the flesh, are as follows:— Head Name, locality and sex and Tail Hind Body foot A. collaris collaris Sikkim Tarai (Zsonya, type) adm "29 5 3 Assam (¢faxoides, type) stip. ad, Q 12) 222 oF 3 Bengal (Chittagong) fuistiad cp wien cd see 45 3 A. Cc. consul Thaundaung, nr Toungoo (type) ad i Gat ol 104 43 Thaundaung, nr Toungoo Vooad. aleacos gz 42 Moulmein (Tickell, MS.) ad. ¢ > 30 9 43 A SA DE SEE BS 2S RET TE LCE TSE TT TT THE HOG-BADGERS (ARCTONYX) OF BRITISH INDIA 465 Arctonyx coliaris consul subsp. nov. Arctonyx collaris of Horsfield, Blyth, Gray and also of Blanford, Mamm. Brit. Ind. p. 178, 1888 (excluding isonyx Hodgs. from synonymy); but not typical A. collaris, as identified above, nor mencollaris. coliaris G. My Allen, Amer. Mus. Novit., no. 359, p10, 1929. "| ea Gg Wile \Y Free = = =e << ~ ES ~. Wo \ fed yr elt iii \ ra \\y Soe ae \ 7. MZ N\ \ WN \ M i \ \ \ \ ‘ \Y NY 4 a al NK Head of Arctonyx collaris collavis, drawn from the type of taxoides. Head of Arctonyx collaris consul, drawn from the skin from Longpa in the Naga Hills in which the black of the ‘mask’ is exceptionally well developed. (These two figures show approximately the relative size of the head in the two British Indian races of the Hog-Badger.) C. Head of Arctonyx collaris consul drawn from the skin from Lockaw, Karenni, to illustrate the greatest reduction in the black of the ‘mask’ in the available specimens of the race. fae B. 466 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XLI Locality of the type:—Thaundaung near Toungoo, 4,500 ft. in Lower Burma (J. M. D. Mackenzie). Distribution.—Assam, Chittagong, Burma at least from Mogok to N. Tenasserim. Distinguished from A. collaris collaris by its considerably large: size both in the head and body and in the skull, by its longer tail which is about one-third the length of the head and body and about twice the length of the hind foot and at least in its typical form by its less luxuriant winter coat. It is also larger than the Southern Chinese and Tibetan race A. collaris albogularis Blyth (=obscurus M. Edw.) and has the winter coat much thinner; but it is smaller on the average both in its body dimensions and skull and has the tai! relatively longer than in the provisionally admitted Annamese race, A. collaris anncwus Thos.' and still smaller, in the skull, than the Malayan race A. collaris dictator.? The following is a list of the localities of the specimens | assign to this race, with the altitudes, where recorded, and the collectors’ names. The only specimens collected for the Survey were those secured by J. M. D. Mackenzie, H. W. Wells, and J. P. Mills; and the only other specimens in the British Museum are the one presented by E. W. Oates and a skull from ‘Bengal’ (Hardwicke). The rest are in the collections of the Indian Museum, Calcutta, and of the Bombay Natural History Society. Moulmein (Tickell MS., specimen not preserved); Lockaw in Karenni, 2,500 ft. (E. W. Oates); Thaundaung, near Toungoo, 4,500 ft. and 30 miles N. W. of Kindat (J. M. D. Mackenzie); Ruby Mines, Mogok (H. C. Smith); Falam in the Chin Hills, 5,000 ft. (J. M. Wright), Chittagong Hills (J. Jarbo); Hot Springs in the Jaintia Hills, 2,400 ft. (H. W. Wells); Longpa in the Naga Hills, 3,000 ft. (J. P. Mills) and Assam (Capt. Bulter)’. The skins from Assam are immature, as shown by their skulls, and the age of the skin from the Chittagong Hills cannot be determined because it has no skull. This is unfortunate because it is precisely in those districts that Hog-Badgers intermediate in size between the two races here admitted may be found, if they exist. The ascription of these specimens to A. c. consul is there- 1 Thomas (Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. (9) 7, p. 524, 1921) based on a young from Nhatrang, Annam. See also Osgood (field Mus. Nat. Hist. Zool., i8, p. 263, 1932) who made anneus a synonym of dictator and very likely correctly. * Thomas (Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., (8), 5, p. 424, 1910) based on an old Q from Trang, in the Malay Peninsula. * The specimen from N.-W. of Kindat was identified by Wroughton as probably referable to A. c. collaris (Journ. Bomb. Nat. Hist. Soc., 24, p. 768, 1916). It is a male shown by its skull, which is 139 mm. in condylobasal length, to be obviously immature. In the note accompanying it Mackenzie, guided by Blanford’s and Wroughton’s nomenclature, stated that he secured examples of collaris and taxoides in the Kabaw Valley and inferred that both occur in the Chin Hills. The specimen he identified as taxoides mysteriously disappeared and never, as Wroughton regretfully remarked, reached the British Museum for examination. I suspect it was a still younger example of consul. THE HOG-BADGERS (ARCTONYX) OF BRITISH INDIA 4.67 fore only an inference based on the size of the young skulls trom Assam and of the skin from Chittagong. Possibly, however, the Assamese specimens, especially the one from the Naga Hills may belong to the Southern Chinese race, A. c. albogularis, which is nearly intermediate in size between the other two. The external measurements of the two examples from Toungoo entered in the table (p. 464) were taken in the tlesh by Mackenzie and those of the one from Moulmein by Tickell as recorded in his MS. For the evidence of the differences in the dimensions between this race and the earlier described anneus from Annam and Laos I am indebted to Dr. Osgood who in 1932 recorded those of a male from Laos and later kindly sent me (in litt.) those of three examples from Thateng in Annam. In these the head and body range from 36}$ to 44 in., the average being from g to 10 in. greater than in consul, the tail from about 84 to g# in., a little less than in consul, and the hind foot from 5 to 5 4/5 in. on the average about 1 in. longer than in consul. The tlesh measure- ments of the type of dictator are very nearly the same as of anneus. The very considerable difference in the length of the head and body between consul and anne@us are, in my opinion, too great to be assigned to individual variation or to be explained away Ly the ‘personal equation’ of the collectors or by different methods of measuring. The differences in the size of the skulls is much less marked. In the three adult ¢ skulls of consul the condylobasal length varies from 152 to 154 mm. In three adult, unsexed specimens of anneus from Thateng, Annam, the same length, as Dr. Osgood informs me, is 159 mm., but in an old ¢ from Phong Saly, Laos, it is only 155 mm., as he recorded in 1932. On the other hand the condylobase in the @Q type of dictator is 165 mm. and in another adult 9 from Sai Yoke, S. W. Siam, it is 164. It is on the evidence of the larger size of these two @ skulls that I pro- visionally regard dictator as a distinct race from annus. Some structural features in the skulls of consul entered in ihe table may be noted. The ad. ¢ skull of the type has no trace of sutures and its sagittal crest is 8 mm. high. The actual length of the younger skull from Toungoo is uncertain because the beast was killed by a knock on the head which smashed the back of the skull, but the mandible is only 7 mm. shorter than in the adult, 102 mm. as compared with 109 mm. It has all the sutures open, no sagittal crest, the temporal ridges being 10 mm. apart at their nearest point close to the middle of the crown, and the zygomatic and mastoid widths are much less, the mastoids being respectively 92 and 83 mm. These differences are a question of age. Very noticeable, too, are the differences in the size of the teeth. Those of the type, it is true, are flattened by wear, but quite clearly they were much smaller, before being worn, than those of the younger specimen. The skull from ‘Bengal’ (Hardwicke) belonged to the specimen 468 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL Hist. SOCIETY, Vol. XLI represented by Gray as Mydaus collaris (Hardwicke’s Illustr. Ind. Zool., 1, pls. 6 and 7, 1830) and twice subsequently figured by him as Arctonyx collaris (Proc. Zool. Soc., 1865, p. 681 and Cat. Carn. etc. p. 124, 1869). The exact locality of the specimen 1s!. quite uncertain; but it may be suspected to have come from one of the districts of the Province lying in those days to the east of the Bay of Bengal. It is very like the skull of the type of consul from Toungoo, but has a lower sagittal crest, only 3 mm. high, a lower- projecting, hooked mastoid process and bigger teeth, more like those of the young Toungoo specimen. The precise dimensions of the skull from Moulmein are doubtful. They have been calculated from Tickell’s figures stated to be 5/8 natural size. This makes the condylobasal length as entered, but according to Tickell the total length of the skull was 6} in. or 158 mm., and this happens to be the condylobasal length which in this skull alone of all I have seen exceeds the length from the occipital crest to the premaxille. If 158 mm. is correct, the skull is almost exactly the same length as those of anneus from Thateng, Annam, referred to above. In that case the Moulmein specimen was intermediate between the two races, not a surprising thing considering its locality. The skull is also singular for the exceptional widths of the interorbital area and of the muzzle, which give an unusually massive look to its facial portion. It is highly possible, however, that the peculiarities above mentioned are due to this Hog-Badger having been reared in captivity, a condition known to produce pro- found effects on the skulls of many Carnivora. Tickell stated that he had the animal alive for two years after receiving it from a monastery where it had been kept as a pet from early cubhood. All the 2 skulls I have seen are immature. The largest from Falam .in the Chin Hills (Bombay Museum), with an estimated condylobasal length of about 140 mm., has the postdental area of the palate greatly inflated by air-cells and the frontal region also elevated by the same factor. The skull from Lockaw, Karenni has the same regions similarly expanded, but the frontal area is also swollen laterally, the whole area being unusually wide as compared with the end of the muzzle. It is also remarkably ‘undershot’, more so than in the type of taxoides, the lower incisors overlapping the upper by 7 mm. The skull is smashed at the back but I estimate its condylobasal length to have been about 128 mm.; but judging from the length of the mandible, 93 mm., the normal condylobasal length would have been about 135 mm., making allowance for the abbreviation of the upper jaw which has resulted in the ‘undershot’ condition of the muzzle. The measurements of the very young @ skull from the Jaintia Hills, which has all its sutures open and its second teeth imperfectly erupted, have been entered for comparison with those of the adult or nearly adult skulls of collaris which are a trifle shorter in condylobasal length and well moulded muscularly. THE HOG-BADGERS (ARCTONYX) OF BRITISH INDIA 469 ~SKULL MEASUREMENTS OF THE Two BRITISH INDIAN RACES OF THE HOoG-BADGER (Arctonyx). c | 2 | | Kesh Pil | eae eal 2 ese ey Name, locality and sex iS fs lg lo SSeS ea | ; im 3 oO) | 9 Ais oe) cs) | | res] ¢ q on Imo oor 4 + ° og Pe Oe Fels ie Caney eed 4 = O See ee eniece jee A. collaris collaris | | | ‘Bengal’. just ad.@ | 122 | 114 | 62 | 24 | 24! 22381 7) 13 |14 Assam (taxoides, type) | | ee | sub.ad.@ | 114 S724 721237) 4 113: 14 Sikkim Tarai (zsonyx, type) | Reetalere | | ad. 1143 1103 5001224) 225) 215) 6 | 13 |14 A. ¢. consul | | ; | be Toungoo (type) ade gf 158° | 154 |. 91:) 37 | 37.) 33 | 3) 45 117 Toungoo Wooade@ (158 yi cu |)83-| ...'| 37 | 33/104) 18 120 ‘Bengal’ ad. ¢ | 157 | 152. | 93} 35 | 36) 33 /10 | 184119 Moulmein (Tickell MS.) ad. ¢ | 152 153 | 943] 354) 413) 40 | 92; 144/193 Karenni, Lower Burma yg.@ | ... (1287) (a Ad Sor 29) oe 4a Jaintia Hills, Assam very yg.@ | 122 TNS 2S 75 520321 24 Gir S115 ! l THE BIRDS OF CENTRAL INDIA. BY SAutim ALI. With Notes By HuGH WHISTLER. Parr II. (Continued from puge 106 of this Volume). Picus xanthopygaeus (Grey). The Little Scaly-bellied Green Woodpecker Specimens collected: Bhopal: 663 11-1-38 Sanchi. Elsewhere not noted. Rare. Dryobates mahrattensis (Latham). The Yellow-fronted Pied Woodpecker: Specimens collected: Bhopal: 23 ¢ 8-1-38 Sanchi, 76 SG 14-1-38 Dodi, 196 Jd, 197 Q 25-1-38 Mathar. Gwalior; 287 Q 15-2-38 Kino, 884 9 19-9-38 Bagh. Indore: 730 Q 27-8-38 Bijwar. Elsewhere noted: Gwalior: Satanwara, Narwar Fort, Surwaya, Bhind. [As pointed out in the Eastern Ghats Survey (J.B.N.H.S., xxxvii, 288) the recognition of 2 races of this woodpecker is only really feasible if birds from the extreme North-west and birds from the South of India are compared. This series can only be considered intermediate. 287 9 from Kuno (wing 103°5) would pass as a typical aurocristatus. No. 884 ¢ from Bagh (wing 99 mm.) would pass as mahrattensis mahrattensis. But with them must be considered the 3 birds from Mhow collected by Briggs (J.B.N.H.S., xxxv, 394) which were certainly intermediates, whilst the present Bhopal series (viz. 3 ¢¢ wing 105, 107, lol mm., and 1 Q tor mm.) are the size of aurocristatus and the colour of mahratiensis. H. W.] Common. Nest-hole on underside of horizontal mango branch, about 4 ft. from ground, containing apparently half-grown chicks, 16 April (Bhind); both parents feeding. A specimen found dead under a tree after severe hailstorm overnight, Mathar 25 January. Dryobates hardwickii hardwickii (Jerdon). The Southern Indian Pigmy Woodpecker. Specimens collected: Gwalior: 859 S 15-9-38 Amjhéera. Dhar: 800 [9], 801 ¢ 6-9-38 Gujri, 844 SG 11-9-38 Mandu. Elsewhere noted: Bhopal: Mathar, Jaithari. Almost invariably present in mixed hunting parties that contain Sitia castanea. Brachypternus benghalensis benghalensis (Linn.) The Golden-backed Wood- pecker. Specimens collected: Bhopal: 10 OG 7-1-38, 21 GS 8-1-38 Sanchi, 132 9 18-1-38 Dédi. Gwalior: 260 ¢ 12-2-38 Ktno, 642 3 12-4-38 Chandéri. Indore: 695 Go 23-8-38 Bijwar. Elsewhere noted: Gwalior: Gwalior Fort, Surwaya. Fairly common. Chrysocolaptes festivus (Bodd). The Black-backed Woodpecker. Specimens collected: Indore: 749 2 30-8-38, 750 3 31-8-38 Choral. Elsewhere noted: Chandéri. lynx torquilla torquilla | (Linn.) The European Wryneck. Specimens collected: Gwalior: 301 Q 19-2-38, 318 @Q 20-2-38 Kuno, 578 ¢& 29-3-38 Badarwas. tHe BiRDS OF CENTRAL INDIA al Ikisewhere noted: Bhopal: Dodi. Dewas: Near town. Earliest date 23 September; latest 29 March. Usually solitary. Flight and habit of twitching wings on alighting very finch-lile. Thereiceryx zeylanicus caniceps (Franklin). The Northern Green Barbet. Specimens collected: Bhopal: 200 ¢, 201 Q 26-1-38 Mathar. Gwalior: 623 Q 7-4-38 Chandeéri. Elsewhere not noted. [Nos. 200 and 201 with wings of 116.5 (d) and 115 (Q) respectively clearly belong to the race caniceps. No. 623 (Q wing 121°5) from further north, however, is as one would expect, considerably closer to J. 2. kangrae (cf. J.B.N.H.S., xxxvii, 515) and is best regarded as an intermediate. H.W.] Xantholoema haemacephala indica (Latham). The Indian Crimson-breasted Barbet. Specimens collected: Bhopal: 67 Q 11-1-38 Sanchi. Gwalior: 384 Q 28-2-38 Satanwara, 445 0? 8-3-38 Narwar Fort. Elsewhere noted: Bhopal: Bhopal City, Jaithari. Gwalior: Surwaya. Indore: Bijwar, Choral. Dhar: Mandu. Not common. Largest ovarian foilicle of specimen 28 February 5 mm. Cucuius canorus ssp. The Cuckoo. Specimen collected: Dhar: 82g ¢ juv. g-9-38 Mandu. Elsewhere not noted. [This young cuckoo is in juvenile plumage and agrees very well, allowing for the individual variation which is common in juveniles, with specimens of the dark phase from the Western Himalayas. It therefore presumably belongs to the typical form. It will be remembered that Briggs procured adult cuckoos at Mhow in June and July which, from the state of their organs, appeared to be breeding and it is quite likely therefore that this juvenile was hatched in the neighbourhood where it was collected—H.W. ] Hierococcyx varius (Vahl). The Common Hawk-Cuckoo. Specimen collected: Gwalior: 868 Q juv. 16-9-38 Sardarpur. Elsewhere noted: Gwalior: Chandéri, Indore: Bijwar. Dhar: Gujri. Not noted in Bhopal or Gwalior between 4 January and 13 April when the first in Central India was heard and seen. Not common, but possibly over- lgoked when silent. — Cacomantis merulinus subsp.? The Plaintive Cuckoo. No. specimens. Ncted: Indore: Bijwar. Dhar: Gujri, Mandu. Silent and not observed between January and May. Clamator jacobinus pica (Hempr. & Ehr.) The Pied Crested Cuckoo. Specimens collected: Dhar: 852 ¢ 13-9-38 Mandt. Gwalior: 867 ¢ 16-9-38, 877. ¢ 17-9-38 Sardarpur. Elsewhere noted: Dhar: Gujri, Gwalior: Gwalior Fort, Tanda near Bagh. Indore: Bijwar, Choral, Simr6l. Not noted during the period from January to May. Fairly common _ in August/September. 877 was a young bird with imperfectly ossified skull. Testes Oles52 6 x 4 mim: Eudynamis scolopaceus scolopaceus (Linn.) The Indian Koel. Specimens collected: Gwalior: 676 3 19-4-38 Bhind. Indore: 767° 2. juv. 1-9-38 Choral. Elsewhere noted: Gwalior: Shivptri, Guna, Riuthiai. [No. 767 is a juvenile female and it has the characteristic blackish plumage, far darker on the upper parts, throat and breast than the adult Q which I have already remarked on (Ibis, 1937, p. 408) as being obviously a_ protective device to avoid wakening any suspicions in the foster parents.—H.W. | Before the beginning of April only the high pitched Kack-ktick-kiick was heard and the birds were silent on the whole. The regular calls or crescendo ‘songs’—ku-oo, ki-oo etc. were fairly common in April, and also heard in 472° - JOURNAL, BOMBAY "NATURAL IST CW SOCKET YY. Vol. er August/September when they were not common and apparently on the wane. 676 had testes enlarged to 9X7 mm. A nearly full-fledged juvenile being fed by House Crows in nest on 23 August! ; Taccocua leschenaultii leschenaultii Lesson. The Southern Sirkeer Cuckoo. Specimens collected: Bhopal: 129 ¢G 18-15-38, 143 G 19-1-38 Dodi; 161 o, 162 S Mathar. Gwalior: 469 ¢ 13-3-38 Narwar Fort. Indore: 720 & 25-8-38 Bijwar. Elsewhere noted: Bhopal: Jaithari, Gwalior: Strwaya, Badarwas, Bhind, Dhar: Mandu. [In J.B.N.H.S., xxxv, 396 I identified two birds .collected by the Rev. Frank S. Briggs as the Northern race sirkee, but they must now be considered afresh with the series obtained by the Survey. In colour the series is variable. In size, however (60 ¢ wing 146-157 mm., 2 99 wing 153-1538 mm.) they are so much smaller than the largest sirkee (North Punjab 5 ¢ od wing 160-166; 5 2 Q 160-167 mm.) that I feel they might be attributed to leschenaultii, al- though somewhat intermediate in character, even the Narwar bird.—H.W. ] Common. In dry stony grass-and-thorn jungle. 720 (25 August) with white- shelled oviduct egg. Centropus sinensis parroti Stres. The Southern Crow-Pheasant. Specimens collected: Gwalior: 403 SG 2-3-38 Satanwara. Elsewhere noted: Bhopal: Bhopal City and Environs, Sanchi, Dodi. Gwaltor : Ktno, Narwar Fort, Strwaya, Guna. Indore: Indore City and Environs. Diar. Gu ji: [3d wing 201 mm. _ Interscapulars black; lower wing coverts chestnut and black mixed.—H.W. ] Psittacula eupatria nepalensis (Hodgs). The Large Indian Paroquet. Specimen collected: Gwalior: 271 Q 14-2-38 Kuno (Wing 205; tail 301 mm.}. Jsewhere noted: Bhopal: Mathar, Jaithari. Gwalior: Narwar, Badarwas, Dhar: Mandu. Breeding in January and February. Specimen (14 February) had soft ovarian. eggs. Juveniles about a month old taken from hole in tree 25 January. Psittacula krameri borealis Ncum. The Eastern Rose-ringed Paroquet. Specimens collected: Bhopal: 123 G 18-1-38 Dodi; 254 OG 2-2-38 Jaithari. Elsewhere noted: Bhopal: Bhopal City, Dewanganj, Sanchi, Mathar. Gwalior: JIXuno, Satanwara, Surwaya, Badarwas, Chandéri, Bhind, Bagh. Indore: Indore City, Bijwar, Choral, Mhow. Dhar: Mamndu. [The specimens are of course really intermediate but in measurement they just reach the minima of Punjab _ birds. I have already — suggested (]-B.N.H.S., xxxvii, 752) an arbitrary boundary between the 2 races at. zo. N: latitude so these can be called borealis. —H.W. ] Common. Breeding in January and February. Ovary of 123 granular ; testes of 254 19X8 mm. Psittacula cyanocephala bengalensis (lorst.). The astern Blossom-headed Paroquet. Specimens collected: Bhopal: 149 3, 1509, 151 3, 152 Q 21-1-38 Mathar. Elsewhere noted: Bhopal: Sanchi, Jaithari. Gwalior: Satanwara, Narwar Fort, Sarwaya,- Badarwas, Chandéri, Bhind, Sardarpur, Bagh. Dhar: Gujri. Common in dry teak and kher forest. . Breeding or about to breed in January. Largest ovum of 150 2 mm. in diameter; testes of 149 7X5 mm. Coracias benghalensis benghalensis Linn. The Indian Roller. Specimen collected: Bhopal: 54 CG 10-1-38 Sanchi. Elsewhere noted: Bhopal: Dodi. Gwalior: Kuno, Satanwara, Surwaya, Bhind. [This ¢ with wing 188 mm. clearly belongs to the Northern race. This is another of those birds which intergrade from north to south and I have already suggested (J.B.N.H.S., xxxvii, 755) that the division between the races sheuld be arbitrarily fixed along 20° N. Lat.—H.W.] Met with = sparingly. PHESBIRDS, OF CHNTRALCIN DIA 473 Merops orientalis orientalis Latham. The Common Indian Bee-eater. Specimens collected: Bhopal: 175 OG, 176 Q 23-1-38 Mathar. Gwalior; 544 Q 25-3-38 Badarwas. Elsewhere noted: Bhédpal: Bhopal City and Environs, Sanchi, Dodi. Gwalior: Satanwara, Narwar Fort, Surwaya, Badarwas, Amyjhéra. Indore: Indore City and Environs, Bijwar, Choral, Dhar: Gujri. Not uncommon, but curiously sparse and local. 544 had a granular ovary and on that date (25 March) a small colony was busy digging nest-tunnels in earth bank of Sind River. Merops superciliesus javanicus Horsf. The Blue-tailed Bee-eater. Specimens collected: Gwalior: 679 3 19-4-38 Bhind. Indore: 787 ¢, 788 0? 5-9-38 Mandléshwar. Dhar: 834 92, 835 oO 10-9-38 Mandu. Elsewhere noted: Gwalior: Gwalior Fort, Amjhéra, Shivpuri. Indore: Mhow. Not met with in Central India between 4 January and 19 April. Fairly common in August/September. Testes of 679 (19 April) 7x4 mm. ; 788 (5 Sept.) young of the season with imperfectly ossified skull. Ceryle rudis leucomelanura Reichenbach. The Indian Pied Kingfisher. Specimens collected: Bhépal: 96 J 15-1-38 Dédi. Dhar: 818 9 7-9-38 Grujri. Elsewhere noted: Bhopal: Sanchi, Bhopal Lake. Gwdéalior: Satanwara, Guna, Ruthiai, Chandéri. Indore: Bijwar. Testes of 96 (15 January) :2x8 mm. Nest 4 February! Ovary of 818 (7 Sept.) granular. Alcedo atthis taprobana Kleinschm. The Common Ceylon Ningfisher. Specimen collected: Bhopal: 100 SG 15-1-38 Dédi. [This is a very blue specimen with a long beak (46 mm. from skull) which I cannot separate from taprobana of South India. There are 4 birds in the British Museum from Mt. Aboo which also seem to be very close to taprobana. Yet other specimens from focalities like Neemuch, Poona, Saugor, Western Khandesh, Khandala and Matheran are benghalensis. The individual and sub- specific differences of this species are very difficult to understand, partly because one so seldom meets with a series of known breeding birds from any area, and partly, no doubt, because being entirely dependent on water supply in which local rain and drought play such an important part, the individual’s movemenis may be very erratic and outside of the ordinary rules of migration.—H.W. | Alcedo atthis bengalensis Gmelin. The Common Indian Kingfisher. Specimens collected: Bhopal: 31 Q 9-1-38 Sanchi. Indore: 747 ¢G 30-8-38 Choral. Elsewhere noted: Gwalior: Guna, Ruthiai, Chandéri. Indore: Bijwar. Singly or pairs at tanks and streams. Ramphalcyon capensis gurial (Pearson). The Brown-headed Stork-billed King- fisher. Specimens collected: Bhopal: 134 Q 19-1-38 Déddi. Indore: 721 3 25-8-38 Bijwar. Elsewhere noted: Bhopal: Bhopal Lake, Sanchi, Jaithari. Gwdlior: Kino, Ruthiai, Chandéri (Panchamnagar). Fairly common. Singly or pairs on wooded streams. Largest ovarian follicle of 134 (19 January) 2 mm. diam, Testes of 721 (25 August) 9X5 mm. Halcyon smyrnensis smyrnensis (Linn). The White-breasted Kingfisher. Specimens collected: Bhopal: 65 CG 11-1-38 Sanchi, 171 Q 22-1-38 Mathar. Indore: 748 Q 30-8-38 Choral. Elsewhere noted: Gwalior: Ruthiai, Chandéri (Panchamnagar). Indore: Bijwar. Not uncommon. Tockus birostris (Scopoli). The Common Grey Hornbill. No specimens, 474. JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURALE GIS ySOCTETY, -V oly CLI Noted: Bhopal: Sanchi, Jaithari, Gwalior: Satanwara, Surwaya, Amjhéra. Indore: Bijwar. Dhar: Mandu. Common. Upupa epops epops Linn. The European Hoopoe. Specimen collected: Gwalior: 369 Q 27-2-38 Satanwara. [Wing 142°5 mm. and pale in colour, being evidently a migrant of the typical form.—H.W. ] Upupa epops ceylonensis Reichb. The Ceylon Hoopoe. Specimen collected: Bhopal: 117 SG 17-1-38 Dédi. [Wing 131 and richly coloured; evidently belonging to the resident form.—H.W. | Elsewhere noted (subspecies?): Bhopal City. Gwalior: Kino, Gwalior Fort, Bhind, Shivptri. Dhar: Gujri. 369 had a granular ovary! On the same date another pair was interested in a hole in a masonry archway. On 17 April one was observed carrying food to nest. Apus melba melba (Linn). The Alpine Swift. Specimen collected: Dhar: 778 G juv. 4-9-38 Gujri. Elsewhere noted: Bhopal: Jaithari. Gwalior: Satanwara. Dhar: Mandu. [The specimen is a little small (wing 214 mm. <) for the typical race but it is certainly too pale for A. m. bakeri and it agrees with my series from N.-W. India. The skinner has noted on the label that the skull was soft and if this is correct the small size might be put down to its being a juvenile specimen. The wing is in moult, and according to the Handbook of British Birds, ii, 244, the wing is probably not moulted at the post-juvenal moult. Adult and juvenile Alpine Swifts are, however, very difficult to separate on plumage and it may be that the Handbook is wrong about the post-juvenal moult.—H.W. ] Small numbers usually seen hawking high over fired grass jungle. A colony (nesting?) about the encrmous rock scarps and valley at Kankra Kho, Mandu. Apus aifinis affinis (Gray). The Common Indian House-Swift. Specimens collected: Gwalior: 481 @, 482 3 14-3-38 Narwar Fort. Indore: 742 Q 30-8-38 Choral. Elsewhere noted: Gwélior: Satanwara, Chandéri, Gwalior Fort. Indore: Bijwar, Maheshwar. Dhar: Gujri, Mandu. Bhopal: Bhopal city, Mathar, Jaithari. Common. Hemiprocne coronata (Tickell). The Indian Crested Swift. Specimens collected: Bhopal: 164 3, 165 od, 166 G, 167 O 22-1-38 Mathar, 199 Q 25-1-38. Indore: 745 3, 746 Q 28-8-38 Choral. Elsewhere noted: Bhopal: Jaithari. Gwalior: Chandéri. Indore: Bijwar. Gonads of January specimens maturing. ¢ ca 7X5 mm.; Q largest ovum 2 mm. Patchy, but not uncommon. Usually over teak and dry forest. Caprimulgus indicus indicus Latham. The Indian Jungle Nightjar. Specimens collected: Gwalior: 644 CG 12-4-38 Chandéri. Testes 5X4 mm. Chasing and courtship in progress. Caprimulgus monticolus monticolus Franklin. Franklin’s Nightjar. Specimens collected: Bhopal: 52 @ 10-1-38 Sanchi. Gwalior: 399 @ 28-2-38 Satanwara, 484 CO 15-3-38 Narwar Fort. Elsewhere noted: Gwalior: Chandéri. Common. 399 breeding 28 February; largest ovum 5 mm. diam. Caprimulgus asiaticus asiaticus Lath. The Common Indian Nightjar. Specimens collected: Bhépal: 75 G 14-1-38, 107 9, 108 G 17-1-38 Dédi. Dhar: 848 Q 12-9-38 Mandu. > Elsewhere noted: Gwalior: Narwar ont, Chandeéri, THE BIRDS OF CENTRAL INDIA 475 [These specimens, as well as 2 in my collection obtained by Briggs at Mhow, all belong to the grey phase. No. 848 is undergoing a complete moult.—H.W. | Common. Noisy March/April; silent August/September. Tyto alba subsp.? The Barn Owl. No specimens. Noted only at Mandu, Dhar State, (Sept. 38) among ruins. Asio flammeus flammeeu (Pontopp.) The Short-eared Owl. | Specimen collected: Bhopdi: 112) G 17-1-38 Dodi. Elsewhere not noted. Solitary at base of bush in stony scrub country. Stomach contained field rat. Strix ocellata (Lesson). The Mottled Wood-Owl. No specimens. Noted: Bhopal: Mathar. Imdore: Bijwar, Choral. Dhar: Gijri. Apparently not uncommon. . Ketupa zeylonensis leschenauit (Temm.). The Bengal Brown Fish-Owl. Specimen collected: Gwalior: 630 9G 8-4-38 Chandéri (Betwa River). Elsewhere noted: Bhopal: Mathar. Gwalior: Strwaya. | Stomach of specimen contained remains of Varanus lizard, ca. long. — At Mathar (Narbada Valley, Bhopal) was heard the long-drawn_ kite-like whistle of what I take to be some sort of owl. It was in a densely bamboo covered forested ravine. The bird never gave a glimpse of itself, but the call kept moving farther and farther away as approached. I have heard this same or a closely resembling whistle, confirmed to be emanating from some owl of about the size of a kite, in the Biligirirangan Hills on the Mysore-Coimbatore border. Otus (bakkamoena?) The Collared Scops Owl. No specimens. The mellow what?...... what? calls were heard Narwar Fort and Chandéri. 12 inches in Gwalior State at Kuno, Athene brama indica (Franklin). The Northern Spotted Owlet. Specimens collected: Bhopal: 48 Q 10-1-38, 68 Q 11-1-38 Sanchi. Gwalior : 311 9, 312 dO 19-2-38 Kuno; 625 Q 8-4-38 Chandéri. Elsewhere noted: Bhopal: Mathar, Gwalior: Gwalior Satanwara, Dhar: Gujri, Mandu. [These specimens are intermediate in size and colour, but may be called indica under the arbitrary convention given in J.B.N.H.S., xxxviii, 237.—H.W. ] Common. Ovary of 625 (8 April) granular. City and Fort, Ninox scutulata lugubris (Tickell). The Indian Brown Hawk-Owl. Specimen collected: Gwalior: 450 Q 9-3-38 Narwar Fort. Elsewhere not noted. AAgypius monachus (Linn.). The Cinereous Vulture. A solitary bird observed on a high bank among the ravines of the Chambal River near Dholpar (Gwalior boundary) 17-8-309. Unconfirmed. Sarcogyps calyus (Scopoli). The Black or Pondicherry Vulture. Noted: Bhopal: Sanchi, Mathar, Gwalior: Kuno. Common. Singly or twos and threes at carcases. Gyps fulvus fulvescens (Hume). The Indian Griffon Vulture. Noted: Bhopal: Sanchi, Dédi, Mathar. Gwalior: Kuno. Dhar: Mandu. Near Mandu (Nalcha) are suitable cliffs said to be used by these yultures in winter for breeding. 476 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL “HIST.” SOCIETY, Vol. XEI Gyps indicus subsp? The Long-billed Vulture, Noted: Bhopal: Mathar. Common ? Pseudogyps bengalensis (Gmelin). The Indian White-backed Vulture. Noted: Bhopal: Mathar; Gwalior: Kino. Dhar: Mandu. Common everywhere. Neophron percnopterus ginginianus (Lath.). The Smaller White-backed Scavenger Vulture. Noted: Bhopal: Sanchi, Dodi, Mathar. Gwalior: Kino, Satanwara, Narwar Fort, Strwaya, Bhind. Common all over Central India. 2 nests in main forks of large Banyan and Mango trees, 22 March, with birds brooding ! Falco subbuteo subsp.? The Hobby. Noted: Gwalior: Kuno. Falco chiquera chiquera Dauden. The Red-headed Merlin. Specimens collected: Gwalior: 569 3G, 570 @ 28-3-38 Badarwas. Testes 5X3 mm.; ovaries granular. A pair. Stomachs contained 1 leg each with feathers and remains of Prinia sylvatica. Falco tinnunculus tinnunculus (Linn.). The European Kestrel. Specimens collected: Bhopal: 233 CG 31-11-38 Jaithari. Gwalior: 402 2-3-38 Satanwara, 486 ¢ 15-3-38 Narwar Fort. Elsewhere noted: Gwalior: Kuno, Sardarpur. First of the season 17 September. Not abundant; occasional singles, Falco jugger Gray. The Laggar Falcon. Noted: Gwalior: Badarwas, Bagh. Aquila rapax vindhiana Franklin. The Indian Tawny Eagle. Specimens collected: Bhopal: 105 3 16-1-38 Dédi. Gwalior: 320 ¢ 20-2-38 Kuno, 442 ¢ 8-3-38 Narwar Fort. Elsewhere noted: Bhopal: Sanchi, Mathar, Jaithari. Gwalior: Kino | Satanwara, Bhind. Common. Hierattus fasciatus fasciatus (Vieillot). Bonelli’s Eagle. Noted: Gwalior: Ummaidgarh Falls (Parvati River), Kano, Chhipén (near Gana). Dhar: Mandu. Nisaétus cirrhatus cirrhatus (Gmelin). The Indian Crested Hawk-Eagle. Specimen collected: Gwalior: 604 ¢ 2-4-38 Chhipon (near Gina), Circaétus ferox (Gmelin). The Short-toed Eagle. Specimens collected: Gwalior: 255 @ 12-2-38 Kuno. Testes 15X10 mm. Haematornis cheela subsp.? The Crested Serpent-Eagle. Noted: Bhopal: Mathar. Gwalior: Chandéri, Indore: Choral. Butastur teesa (I‘ranklin). The White-eyed Buzzard-Kagle. Specimens collected: Bhopal: 26 @ 8-1-38 Sanchi, 184 © 24-1-38 Mathar. klsewhere noted: Bhopal: Jaithari, Dodi, Gwalior: Satanwara, Narwar Fort, Sardarpur. Dhar: Gijri. Not uncommon but sparingly. Occasional singles. Haliaetus leucoryphus Pallas. Pallas’s Fishing Eagle. Noted: Gwalior: Chambal River (Gwalior-Dhélptr boundary). Haliastur indus indus (Bodd.). The Brahminy Kite. Noted: Bhopal Lake; Indore: Bijwar. Uncommon. ; THE BIRDS OF CENTRAL INDIA AGT Milvus migrans govitida Sykes. The Pariah Kite. Noted: Bhopal: Bhopal City, Sanchi, Dodi, Mathar. Gwalior: Gwalior City, Satanwara, Indore: Indore City. Common, especially in and about towns, Elanus coeruleus vociferus (Latham). The Black-winged Kite. Specimens collected: Gwalior: 467 2 13-3-38 Narwar Fort, 490 2 17-3-38 Surwaya. . Elsewhere noted: Bhopal: Mathar, Jaithari. Gwalior: WKtno. Sparse. Circus macrourus (S. G. Gmelin). The Pale Harrier. Specimen collected: Bhopal: 43 9 9-1-38 Sanchi. Elsewhere noted: Gwalior: Narwar Fort, Satanwara, Amjhéra. Dhar: Mandu (or pygargus?). First of season: 11 September. Circus aeruginosus aeruginosus (Linn.). The Marsh Harrier. Noted: Bhopal: Bhopal Lake; Gwalior: Satanwara, Badarwas. Astur badius dussumieri (Temm.). The Indian Shikra. Specimens collected: Gwalior: 468 @ 13-3-38 Narwar Fort, 599° 9 2-4-38 Guna, Indore: 758 3 imm. 31-8-38 Choral. IXlsewhere noted: Bhopal: Sanchi, Mathar, Jaithari. Ovary of 468 (13 March) granular. Crocopus phoenicopterus chlorogaster (Blyth). The Southern Green Pigeon. | _ Specimens collected: Bhopal: 1 g 7-1-38, 13 2 8-31-38 Sanchi; 241 Q 1-2-38 Jaithari; Gwalior: 541 OS 22-3-38 Surwaya. Elsewhere noted: Bhopal: Mathar, Gwalior: Kano, Narwar Fort. Indore : Choral. Dhar: Mandu. [No. 241 has the forehead washed with greenish and a band of greenish across the base of the tail, but it agrees with the rest of the series which lack these greenish markings, in having the yellow abdomen of typical chlorogaster. 2 oc wing 190-192; 2 9@Q 187-190 mm.—H.W.] Common. Ovary of 241 (1 February) granular. Testes of 541 (22 March) Se ex reahone Columba livia subsp? The Blue Rock-Pigeon. Specimens collected: Gwalior: 298 @ 17-2-38, 316 Q 20-2-38 Kuno. Elsewhere noted: Gwalior: Satanwara, Narwar Fort, Strwaya, Bagh, Dhar: Mandu. [2 QQ wings 220, 220 mm. Both have the rump concolorous with the back. In colour and size these birds match my series from the Punjab, but until material is available from Southern India to allow the characteristics of true intermedia to be satisfactorily appreciated I can neither define the ranges or differences of intermedia and neglecta nor identify individual birds with any satisfaction.—H.W. | Ovaries of specimens mature. Largest follicle 5 mm. Streptopelia orientalis meena Sykes. The Indian Rufous Turtle-Dove. Specimen collected: Gwélior: 577 2 29-3-38 Badarwas. Elsewhere noted: Bhopal: Mathar, Gwalior: Chandéri. [This ts the form which breeds in the N.-W. Himalayas, vide my discussion of the names. and races in J.B.N.H.S., xxxviii, 678—H.W. ] Streptopelia chinensis suratensis (Gmelin). The Indian Spotted Dove. Specimens collected: Bhopal: 174 Q 23-1-38, 183 ¢G 24-1-38 Mathar. _ Elsewhere noted: Bhépal: Sanchi, Dodi, Jaithari. Gwalior: Kuno, Satan- wara, Narwar Fort, Sirwaya, Badarwas, Gina, Chandéri, Bagh. Indore: Bijwar. Dhar: Gujri, Mandu. Absent from Bhind. Common. Facies preferences of the various doves more noticeable in dry season, Nest with c/2 on 19 September (Bagh). 478 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST, SOCIETY, Vol. XLI Streptopelia senegalensis cambayensis (Gmelin). The Indian Little. Brown Dove. No specimens. Noted: Bhopal: Sanchi, Dodi, Jaithari. Absent at Mathar. Gwalior: Gwalior Fort and Environs, Kino, Satanwara, Narwar Fort, Surwaya, Badar- was, Guna, Bhind. Indore: Bijwar. Dhar: Gijri, Méandu. Bagh. : Common. Streptopelia decaocto decaocto (Frivalszky). The Indian Ring Dove. Specimens collected: Bhopal: 160 g 22-1-38 Mathar. Gwalior: 290 1a, 120782 17-2-35 WKuno. Elsewhere noted: Bhopal: Sanchi, Dédi, Jaithari. Gwalior: Gwalior Fort and Environs, Satanwara, Narwar Fort, Strwaya, Badarwas, Gina, Bhind, Bagh, Indore: Bijwar. Dhar: Giajri, Mandu. Common. Nests with c/2 and c/3 (!) respectively on 18 September (Bagh). (Enopopelia tranquebarica tranquebarica (Hermann). The Indian Red Turtle- Dove. Specimens collected: Gwalior: 387 6 28-2-38 Satanwara; 475 G 14-3-38 Narwar. Elsewhere noted: Bhopal: Dodi, Gwalior: Strwaya, Badarwas, Bhind. Indore: Bijwar. The least common dove. Testes of 387 (28 February) 125 mm. Pterocles exustus ellioti Bogdanow. The Common Indian Sandgrouse. Specimens collected: Bhopal: 78 @ 14-1-38 Dodi. Gwalior: 270 g 14-2-38 Kuno, Elsewhere noted: Gwalior: Ummaidgarh Falls (Parvati River); Satanwara, Surwaya. | } Not uncommon. Pterocles indicus (Gmelin). The Painted Sandgrouse. Specimens collected: Bhopal: 179 Q 24-1-38 Mathar. Gwalior: 278 ¢ 15-2-38, 313 @ 20-2-38 Kuno; 390 d, 391 2 28-2-38, 398 JO 1-3-38 Satanwara. Elsewhere noted: Gwalior: Narwar Fort. Not uncommon in dry forest. Gonads of January and February specimens enlarged, but not fully mature. Pavo cristatus Linn. The Common Peafowl. Noted: Bhopal: Sanchi, Gwalior: Kuno, Narwar Fort, Gwalior Fort and Environs, Bhind and elsewhere. Indore: Bijwar. Protected by law in Gwalior and Indore, consequently very abundant and tame; commonly about villages. Gallus sonneratii Temm. The Grey Jungle-fowl. Strangely enough not met with or heard at all although the biotope seemed eminently suitable. I have only one doubtful sight record of a hen from Manpur (Indore). It is said to occur in parts of Bhopal State and in the portion of Indore State lying in the Satpuras south of the Narbada River. Galloperdix lunulata (Valenc.). The Painted Spur-Fowl. Specimens collected: Bhopal: 7 Q 7-1-38 Sanchi; Gwalior: 456 9, 457 6 10-3-38, 488 9 15-3-38 Narwar Fort, 614 ¢, 615 ¢ 5-4-38 Bajranggarh (near Gina), 622 9 7-4-38, 632 Q 9-4-38, 638 dG 11-4-38 Chandeéri. Elsewhere noted: Gwalior: Kuno, Strwaya. [Nos. 457, 614, 615, 638 are all adult males, with 2 large spurs on each leg and no sign of moult, yet I find considerable variation on the wings which does not seem to have been recorded. These vary from a bird like No. 457 which has so much metallic green on the wing coverts that the chestnut is only visible on the outer half of the wing coverts (viewed en masse) and even there a considerable part of the feathers are glossy green, to a bird like No. 614. In this the wing coverts are practically all chestnut with the metallic green confined to inconspicuous tips on many of the feathers. There is similar varia- tion in the amount of metallic green on the scapular and central back,. In THE BIRDS OF CENTRAL INDIA 479 both varieties the white spotting persists. I see no evidence that this varia- tion has any connection with age. The other 5 birds are all apparently adult females and the variation in their plumage is trifling, confined to the brightness of the head markings and the presence or absence of shadowy lunate marking on the tips of the breas* feathers. The spurs are one on each leg (twice), 2 on one and 1 on the other, and 2 on each leg (twice). No specimen shows any trace of moult. Narwar is the most north-westerly locality from which I have seen this species. Measurements : Bill Wing Tail "466 23-24°5 153-167 120-129 mm. soe 22-23 150-157 107-128 mm. These are slightly larger than the specimens obtained in the other surveys.—H.W. ] Not uncommon. Frequents stony Anogeissus covered hummocks and _ over- grown fort ruins. All the specimens of March and April had maturing gonads. Largest ovarian follicle of 632 (9 April) 4 mm. in diam.; testes of 638 (11 April) 10X6 mm. Excalfactoria chinensis [chinensis (Linn.)]. The Blue-breasted Quail. Not met with, but a bunch of feathers picked up in grass and teak forest at Manthar (Bhopal Strate) 22 January. Coturnix coturnix coturnix (Linn.). The Common or Grey Quail. Specimens collected: Bhépal: 147 0? 19-1-38 Dodi; Gwalior: 349 G 25-2-38 Satanwara. Elsewhere not noted. Distinctly uncommon. Coturnix coromandelica (Gmelin). The Black-breasted or Rain Quail. No specimens. Noted: Bhéopal: Didi; Gwalior: All along motor road from Gwalior to Shivpiri in grassy country (August/September); Indore: Bijasan Ramna_ near Indore City; Dhar: Grass fields near Jhira Palace (Dhar City). Calling on every side during August/September. Perdicula asiatica asiatica (Latham). The Jungle Bush-Quail. Specimens collected: Bhopal: 27 Q juv. 8-1-38 Sanchi; 130 2, 131 Q pull, 14-1-38 Dodi; 237 Q 1-2-38 Jaithari. Gwalior: 314 dG 20-2-38 Kuno; 422 3, 423 9, 424 oS, 425 9 6-3-38, 431 dO 7-3-38 Narwar Fort; 878 3 19-9-3 Bagh; Dhar: 847 3 11-9-38 Mandu. The birds from Northern Gwalior are not quite typical. [The two species of Bush-Quail of the genus Perdicula have always given observers and writers trouble because of the superficial similarity between the plumages of the 2 species, because of the difficulty of understanding the plumage sequences without a good deal of material and that specially collected ad hoc, and finally because of the fact that the distributions of the two species largely coincide. It was also unfortunate that at an early stage in the recorded history of the 2 species the theory was propounded that the 2 species were found on different types of terrain, for this idea has been repeated again and again without careful verification and I believe that it will be found to be largely or entirely incorrect. A belief in it has, however, coloured most of the accounts of the species. It remained for Mr. Stuart Baker in his review of this genus (J.B.N.H.S., xxix, p. 310) to take a short-cut out of all these difficulties by propounding the super- ficially attractive theory that the 2 birds asiatica and argoondah were races of one species. This theory I examined at some length in the Eastern Ghats Survey review (J.B.N.H.S., xxxviii, 685) and there I showed—at any rate to my own satisfaction—that the theory could not be accepted and that there were certainly two species, one of which at any rate had its own races. Attention having thus been attracted to the problem, I was fortunate in being able-to assemble 480 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL BIST; SOCIETY, Vol. XLI further fresh material through the kindness and activity of Mr. H. W. Waite, Mr. E. A. D’Abreu and Col. R. Meinertzhagen, and now finally but very far from least, Mr. Salim Ali. The result has been to clear up matters still further. When writing the Eastern Ghats review I could not understand the plumages of the two species and so worked on a very conservative basis, not being sure whether the differences observed in the British Museum series were individual or racial or how far reliance could be placed on the sexing of the various specimens. The new material however, and particularly the fine series of both species collected in this survey, has given me a very good (though not yet quire complete) idea of the plumage sequences of the two forms and I am now able to add to the very cautious conclusions originally ventured upon. In the first place argoondah, with its more limited distribution, can now be seen to have two races: argoondah and meinertzhageni (Bull. B.O.C., ccccvii, p. 9—type locality Nasirabad). .In the second place it is clear that the three races of astatica recognised in the Eastern Ghats Survey are not sufficient. This species, with its small size for a Galline bird and its habit of making exceedingly short flights even when disturbed, is sedentary beyond the average of its family and there is nothing surprising therefore in its having developed a number of races. , In the Eastern Ghats Survey I recognised three races of asiatica, namely the typical race, the red race vidali from South Konkan and ceylonensis from Ceylon, at the same time hinting that this might not be sufficient. Since then I have described the pale north-west race punjaubi (Bull. B.O.C. type locality Ambala). The present series has helped to emphasize what was not clear before- or at least which I did not dare recognise until the plumages were more clearly understood—that the typical race is a dark blackish-looking bird, most clearly differentiated on the one hand from the red bird found below the Ghats in the South Konkan, and from the grey or sandy coloured bird found in other parts of India. These birds I have now separated as punjaubi but suspect that new material when it is forthcoming will show that South Indian birds again require separation both on size and colour. In the meantime it may be helpful to sketch roughly the plumages of this species :— The chick is thus described by Ticehurst (J.B.N.H.S., xxxi, p. 376) from a specimen of P.a. punjaubi coliected by me in the Kangra District : From base of bill cver crown, down centre of back to tail, a broad chest- nut band edged on each side with dark brown; outside this from base of bill a broad ochraceous supra-orbital stripe reaching mape and surmounting a narrow dark brown superciliary stripe; ear coverts and short moustachial streak dark brown. Rest of upper parts dappled rusty brown and _ light; underparts ochraceous-grey. The juvenile plumage (sexes alike and described from a pair of P.a.punjaubi -collected by me in Kangra District) is as follows:—A broad band down the centre of the crown brown edged with blackish-brown; a broad fulvous-white supercilium from the lores to the posterior edge of the ear coverts; cheeks and ear coverts dark brown with whitish shaft streaks; upper plumage warm sandy brown, the feathers of the hindneck, upper back and wing-coverts with conspicuous fulvous shaft streaks and broken blackish bars, the shaft streaks becoming broader on the scapulars and the bars becoming black patches on their inner webs; primaries dark brown mottled and streaked with sandy fulvous ; secondaries, tertiaries and tail warm sandy brown with fulvous shafts and mottled, speckled and barred with fulvous and_ blackish-brown; lower peumage vinous-buff, the chin, throat and breast with shining white shaft streaks. This juvenile plumage seems to be moulted rather gradualiy during the first winter giving place to the respective adult male and female plumages. As in other game birds the outer two or three juvenile primaries, more pointed in character than those which will succeed them, are apparently retained to the first post nuptial moult, but they are not always easy to recognise. No. 27 in this series is a juvenile in the plumage described above but is throughout in a far darker, blackish-brown key, following and emphasising the sub-specific difference between the typical race and punjaubi. The adult male and female are easy to recognise and are as usually described. The adult male has black and white barred underparts with a chestnut chin and throat. The female has vinous-brown underparts with a_ chest- THE BIRDS OF -CENTRAL INDIA 481 nut chin and throat. It must, however, be realised that some adult females have an adumbration of black and white barring on the Jower throat and breast which must not be confused with the tru.y barred black and white feathers which will be found irregularly on juvenile males which have moulted some of their juvenile feathers.—H.W. ] Common. No. 27 (8 January) and 131 (18 January) were juvenile and pullet respectively. The birds were mostly. paired off in August/September. Mestes of $47 (11. September) 116 mm.; of: 878 (19 September) 117 mm. On 19 September a pair was observed accompanied by half-grown pullets. Perdicula argoondah argoondah (Sykes). The Rock Bush-Quail. Specimens collected: Indore: 733 9, 734 ¢ 29-8-38 Bijwar. Perdicula argoondah meinertzhageni Whistler. collected: Gwalior: 392 Q 28-2-38 Satanwara; 574 9, 575 6; 576 Q 29-3-38 Badarwas; 660 Q 17-4-38, 670 Q, 671-3 18-4-38 Bhind. [The two birds from Indore State are very dark and agree beyond doubi with the typical race. The Gwalior series is not so uniform and four speci- mens (Nos. 392, 574, 660, 670) being in transition from juvenile to adult plumage, is not so easy to recognise. It is, however, certainly closer to memertshagent. The adult plumage of this species is of course easily recognised from the corresponding adult plumages of asiatica. In the male the most marked characteristic is the dull brick-red chin and throat patch as distinct from chestnut. The female lacks the throat-patch altogether (in astatica it is as distinct in the fernale as in the male) having the chin whitish and the throat concolorous with the rest cf the lower plumage. The presence or absence of marking on the brown inner webs of the primaries is often cited as a dis- tinguishing feature between the two species. It is correct that in asiatica the inner web is unmarked and this web is certainly as a rule barred or mottled or ‘watered’ with fulvous in argoondah, but it must be remembered that in some specimens the inner web is unmarked as in astatica. These remarks only apply to the adult primaries. In both species the juvenile primaries are normally marked on the inner web. This character therefore must be used with great caution. The chick of argoondah is as yet undescribed and I have seen no specimen Of it: The juvenile plumage may be thus described from a female in my _ collec- tion of the race meinertzhageni from Nasirabad, the type locality: Crown and nape brown, barred with black, the feathers of. the forecrown: with pale shafts; supercilium extending beyond ear coverts pale creamy-fulvous; ear coverts and cheeks mixed bufiy-brown and dark brown; remainder of upper plumage earthy-brown, the feathers speckted and broadly barred with black, and with fulvous shaft streaks, these markings becoming obsolescent on the rump and upper tail coverts, primaries, secondaries, tertiaries and tail warm sandy brown, barred and_ freckled on both webs with brownish-black, the tertiaries with broad fulvous shaft stripes and black blotches on the inner webs; chin vinous buff; remainder of lower p'umage fulvous-buff, the throat, breast and to a less extent the flanks barred with blackish-brown, the feathers with white shafts. It will be noticed that this juvenile plumage differs from that of asiatica in one most marked detail, that instead of being roughly unicolorous below with shining white shaft streals, the throat and breast are barred with b-ackish, thereby superficially resembling the adult male. This explains why in this species one meets numbers of immature females which seem to have a mixture of male and female plumage below. The warm vinous-buff of the adult female underparts is, in these birds, mixed with barred black and white feathers which are remains of the juvenile plumage. Whereas on the other hand in asiatica the birds with mixed vinous-buff and black and white barred plumage are young males exchanging the vinous-buff juvenile plumage for the adult black and white bars. In the one case the btack and white bars are juvenile feathers, in the other case adult feathers. The distinction is interest- ing and important, and essential to an understanding of the two species.—H.W. ] Common. Gonads developed between April and September. 483. JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL Hist. SOCIETY, Vol. XLI Francolinus pictus (Jardine & Selby). The Painted Partridge. Specimens collected. Bhopal: 77 Q 14-1-38, 142 @ 19-1-38 Dodi; 212 Q 26-1-38 Mathar. Gwalior: 526 ¢ 21-3-38 Surwaya; Dhar: 850 ¢, 851 6 32-9-38 Mandu. Elsewhere noted: Bhopal: City Environs, Jaithari. Gwalior: Kuno, Badarwas, Guna, Ruthiai, Chandéri, Deharda-lsagarh Road. Indore: Bijasan Ramna (Indore City Environs), Bijwar, Mhow (around Bircha. Lake). [I cannot yet fully satisfy myself that there are two races of this species ; nor can I obtain the necessary material to make out the plumages. The sexes can certain:y not always be distinguished by plumage.—H.W. ] Common but not abundant. Breeding in September. Testes of 850 and 851 (12 Sept.) 19X12 and 17X11 mm. respectively. Local shikari asserted that male and female call alike. Francolinus pondicerianus interpositus Hartert. The Northern Grey Part- ridge. Specimens collected: Bhépal: 232 SG 31-1-38 Jaithari. Gwalior: 317 20-2-38 Kuno. Elsewhere noted: Bhopal: Sanchi, Bhopal Lake Environs. Gwalior ; Surwaya, Badarwas, Ruthiai, Barai (near Bhind), Guna, Chandeéri. Common, but numbers much reduced in certain areas owing to excessive netting. Breeding in March/April. Two broods of 2 or 3-day old chicks with parents on 19 April (Barai Dalbergia Piantation). One brood tended by 3 adults ! Turnix suscitator taijoor (Sykes). The Common Bustard Quail. Specimens collected: Bhopal: 22 Q 8-1-38 Sanchi, 79 @Q 14-1-38 Dodi. Gwalior: 528 2, 529 @Q 21-3-38 Surwaya. Elsewhere noted: Gwalior: Kino, Badarwas, Chandéri Fort. Indore: | Bijwar. Dhar: Mandu. Not uncommon, Ovaries of specimens 21 March granular. Turnix dussumieri (Temm.) The Little Button-Quail. Specimen collected :Gwalior: 294 CG 17-2-38 Kuno. Elsewhere not noted. Apparently not common. Hypotaenidia striata gularis (Horsf.). The Indian Blue-breasted Banded Rail. No. specimens. Noted: Bhopal: Bhopal Lake; Gwalior: Satanwara (This species or Rallus aquaticus ?). Amaurorais phoenicurus chinensis (Bodd.). The Indian White-breasted Waterhen. No specimens. Noted: Bhopal: Sanchi, Bhopal Lake, Jaithari (on Tend6éni River); Indore : Bijwar. Gallinula chloropus indicus Blyth. The Indian Moorhen. No specimens. Noted: Gwalior: Shivpuri, Narwar (Sind River), Chandéri. Fulica atra atra Linnaeus. The Coot. No. specimens. Noted: Bhopal: Bhopal Lake; Gwalior: Satanwara. Metopidius indicus (Latham). The Bronze-winged Jacana. Specimen collected: Bhopai: 2 Q 7-1-38 Sanchi. Elsewhere noted: Gwalior: Satanwaray Chanderi, Panchamnagar, Ramnagar Jank. Bhopal: Bhopal Lake. THE BIRDS OF CENTRAL INDIA 483 Hydrophasianus chirurgus (Scopoli). The Pheasant-tailed Jacana. Specimen collected: Indore: 792 G juv. 5-9-38 Mandléshwar (Choli Tank). Noted: Bhopal: Bhopal Lake, Gwalior: Satanwara, Chandéri, Ramnagar Tank (near Guna), Indore: Choral (Balwada Tank), Dhar: Mandu. [The specimen is a juvenile with little of the down plumage remaining. It may be described as follows: Forehead, crown and: nape chestnut; hindneck still in down, warm buff with greyish bases and bounded by a shadowy blackish line from the ear- coverts to the shoulders; upper and lower back and the scapulars dark brown, the feathers broadly bordered with deep rusty fulvous; rump and upper tail coverts dark brown, the feathers broadly tipped with deep rusty fulvous, this colour divided by a dark brown bar in some feathers; wing coverts dove brown, barred with darker brown and washed with fulvous, a broad white band down the edge of the wing; primaries and secondaries short and in quill, but it is possible to see that they will be as in the adult though the filaments at the tips of the first three primaries are not so fully developed; tail not yet visible; whole lower plumage white, the earcoverts, sides of the throat and the breast faintly washed with salmon pink, the breast dully spotted with sooty-black. The carpal spur of the wing is already evident.—H.W. ] Common. Several juveniles on 5 September and a c/2 resting directly upon floating singara (Trapa bispinosa) leaves (Choli Tank, Mandléshwar, Indore). Rostratula benghalensis benghalensis (Linn.). The Painted Snipe. Specimen collected: Gwaélior: 376 Q 27-2-38 Satanwara. Elsewhere noted: Gwalior: Chandéri. Antigone antigone antigone (Linnaeus). The Sarus Crane. No specimens. Noted: Bhopal: Bhopal Lake, Sanchi (Gulgaon Tank), Gwalior : Harsi Lake (Narwar Dist.). Strwaya, Chandéri; Indore: Choral (Balwada Tank), Mandléshwar (Choli Tank); Dhar: Mandu. Common. Usually in pairs accompanied by sub-adult young—1 or 2—with- out red head. Nest in shallow reed-covered tank with c/2 on 11 September (Mandu). Choriotes nigriceps (Vigors). The Great Indian Bustard. No. specimens. Noted: Gwalior: Esagarh. Now said to be becoming increasingly rare in Gwalior territory and to be met with sparingly and rather sporadically in the following localities : Near Mohana; along Deharda-Esagarh road in various spots; along Pachchar-Esagarh road near Saruskhéri; west of Gwalior City near Tighara Lake and Pagara ; near Jaura in Morena District; along portions of Shivpuri-Pchri road. Greatly persecuted by shikaris and needs stringent protection. Sypheotides indica (Miller). The Lesser Florican or Likh. Specimens collected : Indore : 684 3 21-8-38 Indore environs (Bijasan Ramma) ; Gwalior: 871 3, 872 ¢& 17-9-38 Sardarpur (on Jhabua road, ca 4 m. from Rajgarh village). The testes of the specimens—all in breeding plumage—-measured 148, 12X5 and 8x4 respectively. They were busy leaping up into the air from time to time in nuptial display, and evidently preparing to breed. Burhinus oedicnemus indicus (Salvadori). The Indian Stone-Plover. Specimens collected: Bhopal: 8 Q 7-1-38, 49 G 10-1-38 Sanchi, Gwalior: 565 oS 27-3-38 Badarwas. Elsewhere noted: Bhopal: Dodi, Gwalior: Kuno, Surwaya, Sardapur, Bagh. Dhar: Gijri. Common. Often in flocks of 6 to 8. Vociferous during moonlit nights. Esacus recurvirostris (Cuvier). The Great Stone-Plover. Specimens collected : Gwalior : 329 3 20-2-38 Kuno; 545 ¢ 25-3-38 Badarwas. Elsewhere noted: Gwdlior: Satanwara, Narwar (Sind River), Chandérj (Betwa River). 484 JOURNAL. BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOGIETY, Vol. XLI Pairs on shingle banks and rocky beds of rivers. Testes of specimens 8x 5 and 1oX5 respectively. CurSorius Coromandelicus coromandelicus (Gmelin). The Indian Courser. Specimens collected: Gwalior: 356 ¢, 357 2 25-2-38. Satanwara. Klsewhere noted: Gwalior: Surwaya. Not common. Gonads of specimens: g 5x4 mm.; @ largest ovum 1 mm. Gelocheiidon nilotica nilotica (Gmelin). The Gull-billed Tern. A single tern with black bill observed at Narwar (Sind River) on 14 March, flying steadily at great height due North, was evidently this species. Sterna aurantia Gray. The Indian River Tern. Specimen collected: Gwalior: 338 ¢ 24-2-38 Satanwara. Iulsewhere noted: Gwalior: Guna (Rampura Tank), Chandéri. Testes 7X5 mm. Sterna melanogaster Temminck. The Black-bellied Tern. Specimen collected: Gwalior: 612 2 4-4-38 Guna (Rampura Tank). Elsewhere noted: Bhopal: Dodi. Ovary granular. Charadrius dubius curonicus Gmelin. The European Lite Ringed Plover. Specimen collected: Bhopal: 84 Q 14-1-38 Dedi. [This bird is still in immature plumage, but its measurements (bill from skull 17, wing 120°5, tail 63, tarsus 23 mm.) prevent me attributing it tec anything but this race which is no doubt a winter visitor.—H.W. | Charadrius dubius jerdoni (legge). Jerdon’s Little Ringed Plover. Specimens coilected: Gwalior: 327 9, 328 dG 20-2-38 Kuno, 413 ¢ 3-3-3d Satanwara, 584 @, 585 do, 586 ¢ 1-4-38 Kuthiai; Dhar: 819 @ 7-9-38 Gijri. Iklsewhere noted: Gwéalior: Harsi Lake, Shivptri. [No. 819 is in juvenile plumage. The remainder are adults and from the state of their organs as recorded on the labels were doubtless on_ their breeding ground. The series measures: Bill from skull wing tail tarsus 46d 15°5-16°5 T1I*5-115 59-62 - 24-24°5 mm, 229 15°5-10°5 114-117 62°5-63°5 24-25 mm. They evidently belong to the resident race which is commonly known as Ch.d.jerdoni though as I pointed out in the Eastern Ghats Survey, there are no specimens from Ceylon available to establish what that race is actually like and whether it is the same as Indian birds.—H.W. ] Gonads of specimens between 20 February and 1 April maturing. Testes averaging 5X3 mm ; ovaries granular. Lobivanellus indicus indicus (Boddaert). The Indian Red-wattled Lapwing. Specimen collected: Bhopal: 221 Q 30-1-38 Jaithari. Islsewhere noted: Bhopal: Bhopal Lake, Sanchi. Gwalior: Ktno, Satan- wara, Shivpuri, Indore: Bijwar. Common. In the rainly season commoniy seen along the grassy edges of motor roads. Lobipluvia malabarica (Boddaert). The Yellow-wattled Lapwing. Specimens collected: Bhopal: 42 Q 9g-1-38 Sanchi, 128 $ 18-1-38 Dodi. Gwalior: 362 Q 26-2-38 Satanwara. elsewhere noted: Gwalior: Kuno, Guna, Ruthiai. Indore: Indore town outskirts. Dhar: Gujri. Not uncommon. Largest ovarian folicle of 362 (26 February) 3 mm. Himantopus himantopus himantopus (Linn.). The Black-winged Stilt. No specimens. Noted: Bhopal: Dodi; Gwalior: Satanwara, Strwaya. On village and irrigation tanks. THE BIRDS OF CENTRAL INDIA . 485 Tringa ochropus (Linnaeus). The Green Sandpiper. Specimen collected: Bhopal: 60 Q 10-1-38 Sanchi. Elsewhere noted: Bhopal: Bhopal Lake outskirts; Dodi; Gwalior: Satan- wara, Narwar Fort, Surwaya, Badarwas, Chanderi; Indore: Bijwar, Choral ; Dhar: Gujri. Common in winter. Earliest date 26 August; latest 8 April. Tringa stagnatilis (Bechstein). The Marsh Sandpiper. No specimens. Noted: Bhopal: Bhopal Lake; Gwalior: Satanwara, Chanderi, Bhind. Latest date 20 April. Tringa glareola Linnaeus. The Wood Sandpiper. Specimen collected: Gwalior: 503 2 18-3-38 Surwaya. Elsewhere noted: Gwalior: Chandéri. Latest date 8 April. Tringa hypoleucos Linnaeus. Vhe Common Sandpiper. Specimen collected: Dhar: 775 ¢ 3-9-38 Gujri. Noted: Bhopal: Sanchi, Dodi, Bhopal; Gwalior: Satanwara, Narwar Fort, Surwaya, Chandéri, Bhind. Common. Last date 1g April. Tringa erythropus (Vroeg). The Spotted or Dusky Redshank. Specimen collected: Bhopal: 85 @ 14-1-38 Dodi. Elsewhere noted (this or totanus?): Gwalior: Satanwara, Surwaya. Glottis nebularia (Gunnerus). The Greenshank. Specimen collected: Bhopal: 29 Q 9-1-38 Sanchi. ; Elsewhere noted: Bhopal: Dodi; Gwalior: Kuno, Satanwara, Narwar (Sind River), Surwaya, Ruthiai, Chanderi, Bhind; Dhar: Gujri. Ch Earliest date 3 September; latest 19 April. Erolia temminckii (Leisler): Temminck’s Stint. ji Specimens collected: Gwalior: 339 Q 24-2-38, 352 co 25-2-38 Satanwara. Elsewhere noted: Bhopal: Déddi; Gwalior: Harsi Lake. Small flocks. Capella gallinago gallinago (Linn.). The Common or Fantail Snipe. Specimen collected: Gwalior: 378 Q 27-2-38 Satanwara. . Elsewhere noted: Gwalior: Surwaya, Chandéri. Latest date 8 April. Capella stenura (Bonaparte). The Pintailed Snipe. No specimens. Noted: Gwalior: Satanwara. Lymnocryptes minimus (Brunnich). The Jack Snipe. Specimen collected: Gwalior: 377 Q 27-2-38 Satanwara. Phalacrocorax carbo sinensis (Shaw). The Indian Large Cormorant. No specimens. Noted: Gwalior: Ummaidgarh Falls, Parvati River. Phalacrocorax niger (Vieillot). The Little Cormorant. No specimens. ‘Noted: Bhopal: Sanchi, Dodi, Bhopal Lake; Gwalior: Satanwara, Narwar, andéri. Anhinga melanogaster Pennant. Specimen collected : Gwalior: 449 9 9-3-38 Narwar Fort (Katora Tal). Elsewhere noted: Bhopal: Sanchi, Jaithari; Gwalior: Ummaidgarh Falls (Parvati R.) Indore: Mandléshwar. 3 486 JOURNAL, ROMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XLI [The innermost tertiary and the tail-feathers show the stiff corrugations which are such a marked feature of this species and which presumably have some connection with its wonderful diving powers.—H.W. | Nesting in company with Ardea purpurea and Ardeola gray on Babul in Sangi Jank near Mandleshwar. Several nearly full-tledged young on 5 September. Platalea leucorodia Linnaeus. The Spoonbill. No specimens. Noted: Bhopal: Sanchi (Gulgaon Tank); Gwalior: Satanwara, Surwaya. Small flocks. Threskiornis melanocephala (Latham). The White Ibis. No specimens. Noted: Bhopal: Sanchi; Gwalior: Satanwara, Sturwaya, Chandéri. Small parties. Pseudibis papillosa (Temm. and Lang). The Indian Black Ibis. No specimens. Noted: Bhopal: Sanchi; Gwalior: Kuno, Satanwara, Narwar, Chandéri, Bhind. Fairs or smali parties. Ciconia ciconia subsp.? The White Stork. No. specimens. Noted: Gwalior: Chandéri (3 or 4 on a tank, 8-4-38). The only meeting in Central India. Dissoura episcopus episcopus (Bodd.). The White-necked Stork. No. specimens. Noted: Gwdlior: Kuno, Harsi Lake, Ruthiai. d Large stick nest on top of bare Bombax malabaricum ca 4o ft. up, on river bank. at Ruthiai 1-4-38. 1 bird brooding, the other perched on rim. Xenorhynchus asiaticus aSiaticus (Latham). The Black-necked Stork. No specimens. mas Noted: Gwalior: Kuno, Harsi Lake, Strwaya, Chandéri, Esagarh. Singly or pairs. ibis teucocephalus (Pennant). The Painted Stork. No specimens. Noted: Bhopal: Bhopal Lake; Gwalior: Kuno, Satanwara, Harsi Lake, Narwar (Sind River). Small parties. Anastomus oscitans (Bodd.). The Open-billed Stork. No specimens. Noted: Gwalior: Kuno, Satanwara, Chandéri. Singly or in small parties. Uncommon and excessively shy. Ardea purpurea manillensis Meyen. The Eastern Purple Heron. No specimens. Noted: Bhopal: Sanchi, Gwalior: Satanwara, Ramptira Tank (near Gina), Chandéri; Indore: Mandléshwar. Nesting in company with Anhinga and Ardeola on Babul in Sangi Tank near Mandléshwar, 5 September; several nearly full-fledged young awkwardly clambering about the branches. . Ardea cinerea (rectirostis Gould). The Eastern Grey Heron. No specimens. Noted: Gwalior: Kuno, Satanwara, Narwar, Rampura Tank (near Gina), Bhind. Solitaries. THE BIRDS OF CENTRAL INDIA 487 Egretta alba subsp.? The Large Egret. No. specimens. Noted: Bhopal: Dodi; Gwalior: Satanwara. Solitaries. Egretta intermedia intermedia (Wagler). The Indian Smailer Egret. No specimens. Noted: Bhopal: Sanchi, Bhopal Lake; Gwalior: Ummaidgarh Falls (Parvati River), Narwar, Chandéri. Egretta garzetta garzetta (Linn.). The Little Egret. No. specimens. Noted: Bhopal: Bhopal Lake; Gwalior: Narwar (Sind River), Chandéri. Bubulcus ibiscoromandus (Boddaert). The Cattle Egret. No specimens. , Noted: Gwalior: Narwar, Sardarpur; Indore: Manpur; Dhar: Gujri, Mandu. Butorides striatus javanicus (Horsfield). The Indian Little Green Heron. Specimen collected: Bhopal: 136 Q 19-1-38 Dodi. Elsewhere noted: Bhopal: Jaithari (Tenddni River); Gwalior: Bajranggarh (near Guna). Ardeola grayii (Sykes). The Indian Pond Heron. Specimen collected: Gwalior: 465 od 12-3-38 Narwar Fort (Katora Tal). Elsewhere noted: Bhopal: Bhopal Lake; Gwalior: Satanwara, Chandéri ; Indore: Mandléshwar. Common. Nesting in company with Anhinga and Ardea purpurea in Babul in Sangi Tank near Mandléshwar, 5 September. Phoenicopterus ruber roseus Pallas. The Flamingo. No specimens. se Noted: Indore: Mandléshwar (Choli Tank). 4 birds flying high overhead, 5 September. Sarkidiornis melanotos Pennant. The Nukhta or Comb-Duck. Specimens collected: Gwalior: 491 ¢, 492 @ 17-3-38 Surwaya, 535 @ 22-3-38. Elsewhere noted: Bhopal: Sanchi (Gulgaon Tank); Gwalior: Chandéri (Panchamnagar). [No. 535 is an immature bird differing from the adult female in having less gloss on the black parts of the upper plumage; in having the white of the hindneck sullied with brown and barred with sooty-brown and black; the lower back and rump are dull greyish-white, the feathers edged with brownish and the upper tail coverts and tail are brown without gloss.—H.W. ] The ovary of 535, however was conspicuously granular suggesting that the bird was going to breed shortly. Fairly common. Small parties and flocks up to 25. Nettopus coromandelianus coromandeiianus (Gmelin). The Cotton Teal. Specimens collected: Dhar: 827 9, 828 ¢ 9-9-38 Mandu. Elsewhere noted: Bhopal: Sanchi (Gulgaon Tank); Gwalior: Chandéri, Esagarh; Indore: Choral (Balwada Tank), Choli Tank (near Mandléshwar). Fairly common in small numbers. Specimens a breeding pair. Testes of d 29X18 mm.; soft-shelled oviduct egg in Q medsuring 40X29 mm. Anser indicus (Latham). The Bar-headed Goose. No. specimens. Noted: Gwalior: Along Shivpuri-Pohri road, 8 miles from the former, A flock of about 50 on a tank, 11 February. 488 jOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL. HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XLt Dendrocygna javanica (Horsf.). The Lesser or Common Whistling Teal. No specimens. Noted: Gwalior: Chanderi; Dhar: Mandu. Small flocks up to end of April. A pair on 9 Sept.—evidently breeding. Casarca ferruginea (Vroeg). The Ruddy Sheldrake. No specimens. Noted: Gwalior: Kuno, Satanwara, Harsi Lake, Chandéri,- Bhind. Usually pairs. Once a flock of about 30. Latest date 19 April. Mareca penelope (Linn.). The Wigeon. No specimens. Noted: Gwalior: Satanwara, Chandéri (near Panchamnagar). Nettion crecca crecca (Linn.). The Common Teal. No specimens. Noted: Bhopal: Bhopai Lake, Dodi; Gwalior: Kino, Satanwara. Small parties on tanks. Dafila acuta (Linn.). The Pintail. No specimens. Noted: Gwalior: Chandéri. Several on tank. Spatula clypeata(Linn.). The Shoveller. No specimens. Noted: Gwalior: Satanwara. Nyroca ferina ferina (Linn.). The Pochard or Dun Bird. No specimens. Noted: Gwalior: Satanwara. Nyroca rufa rufa (Linn.). The White-eyed Pochard. No. specimens. Noted: Bhopal: Bhopal Lake; Gwalior: Satanwara. The majority of duck on Bhopal Lake (2 February) were of this species. Nyroca fuliguia fuliguia (Linn.). The Tufted Pochard. No. specimens. Noted: Bhopal: Bhopal Lake; Gwalior: Satanwara. Podiceps ruficollis capensis Salvadori. The Indian Little Grebe. ~ Specimens collected: Gwalior: 497 Q 17-3-38 Surwaya, 530 Q 21-3-38. Elsewhere noted: Bhopal: Bhopal Lake: Gwalior : Satanwara; Dhar: Mandu. Fairly common. Ovaries of both specimens granular. PUBLISHED LITERATURE ON CENTRAL INDIAN BIRDS 1. Barnes, H. E. —Birds Nesting round Neemuch. j.B.N.H.S., i, 38-62. 2. Betham, R. M., Lt.-Col.—The Nesting of a few somewhat rare Birds near Mhow, Ibid. xix, 988-990. 3. Briggs, Rev. F. S.—A Note on the Birds in the neighbourhood of Mhow. Ibid, xxxv, 382-404. 4. King Birds of the Goona District. foun: As Soc; 107 Benoa wixxxviin 208. 5. Maries, C.—List of Birds from Gwalior in the State Museum. “fi: BIVuEES., xi 30. 6. Martin Young—Birds’ Nesting near Mhow. /.B.N.H.S., xvi, 514. - 7. Moss King, R. C. H.—The Resident Birds of the Saugor and Damoh Districts,.‘Central Provinces. J-BoN.H3S.; \xxi) 187- -103. 8. Osmaston, B. B.—The Birds of Pachmarhi. Ibid. xxviii, 453-459. g. Swinhoe, Lt.-Col) (@:, sand Barnes, Et) vEl )—On ithe (Birds) of wGentral India. . ‘Ibis’, 1885, pp. 52-69, 124-138. 10. Shelley, Lt. B. A. G.—The Nesting of the Brown Flycatcher (on ghats - near Mhow) /:B.N.Sosix,. 220. 11. Whitehead, Capt. C. H. TNotes on the Birds of Sehore, Central India, with special reference to migration. - Ibid. xxi, 153-170. (THE END) - Dow iS iia OnE Ace AbplVr IsSLANDs, BY LizUT.-COLONEL R. W. BurRTON. (With four plates). In the minds of most people there will be some sort of romantic idea regarding coral islands. Blue lagoons, feathery palms, coral reefs, dusky beauties; all of these, with some reservation as to the latter, are to be found at Chetlat, a typical coral ‘atoll’ and the most northerly of the inhabited islands of the Laccadive archipelago. It was at dawn on Friday, the 8th November 1935, that the writer crossed the bar of the Mangalore harbour in the ‘Valia Bukkari’ an odam, as the island coast-going vessels are termed, of 21 tons burthen. In length 37 feet with a draught of 5 feet einches and a crew of i1 tmen there is in the whole of her construction not a single nail or bolt! The timbers are of the ‘various trees which grow on the island, while the sweeps, used when becalmed, or to aid the rudder when going to another tack, are of coconut-palm wood. All the planks are secured by good joinery made fast by lashings of coir passed through holes bored to take them; even the rudder swings on hinges of coir rope. All the cordage is of island manufacture, and the rudely fashioned pulley blocks are made by the island carpenters. The mainmast is of teak from Indian forests, and the sixty-foot spar which carries the huge lateen sail is of mainland growth. With a fair breeze from the land the mountains of the Western Ghats were out of sight by noon and we settled down to a voyage of uncertain duration. With luck we might do the 150 miles in three days or less, but with ‘adverse winds or weather it might take thirteen. Such was the fate of one of these boats a year or ‘so ago: thirteen days at sea to be driven ashore a hundred miles down the coast dismasted, rudderless, and all aboard in desperate straits for water. In view of such a happening we carried 4o gallons for our party of four, while the crew had their supply in a large earthenware vessel encased in coir-rope netting and slung below the leaf-thatched platform placed amidships as living and sleeping quarters for the crew. There also, on a floor of mud, is the cooking galley. ‘Cabin accommodation’ on the boat was a space beneath the poop nine feet wide and long narrowing to three feet at the stern- post, and two feet six inches high. When the vessel felt the first heave of the ocean the smell of the bilge water was so nauseating that I passed the whole voyage lying in the open on the rice cargo. Later on the horrible liquid, which instantly called up thoughts of diphtheria, was mostly baled out, but much of the 490: JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL. HSI SOGlE IN. Vola excel odour remained. Fortunate is R. B. in being wholly immune from sea sickness, yet a few minutes of that variety of eau-de- cologne would have given him the same green and yellow com- plexion as the poor R, A. (Mr. Ramaswamy Ayyangar, Research Assistant of the Madras Fisheries Department) who lay prostrate in the rabbit hutch to the last moment of the voyage. It was interesting to observe the life of the Islanders, Muham- madans all, at such close quarters, and the interest was fully recip- rocated ! The two cooks, Melacheries by class, the lowest of the four social grades on the islands, prepared curry and rice for all, those on duty having their piled-up portion taken to them on large enamel-iron plates. During the latter half of the 18th century such craft as this were used on occasion for the movement of troops of the East India Company from port to port along the Malabar Coast; and to this day, as I found on seeing the ship’s manifest, it is entered that this small boat can carry 69 natives or 51 Europeans. Such trials did those gallant souls endure who laid the foundations of our Empire in the East. The Tindal, as the Captain is styled, possessed a sextant in use of which he was wholly ignorant. The course was kept by compass aided by the position of the sun and stars. In the small hours of Sunday morning the sea was rather rough and a rope parted at the masthead. Being roused by the shouts of the Tindal the crew were quickly at their appointed stations and in a few seconds one of the men walked up the mast carrying a rope in his teeth which he rove through the block indifferent to the sway- ing of the vessel. Soon after dawn another of the crew, very Simian in profile, walked up in the same effortless way and announced ‘some country is in sight.’ This, after some question- ing by the Tindal as to its shape, was announced to be Chetlat. Quite a good shot to hit a one mile bull’s-eye at a range of a hundred and fifty! Before long the smudge became a line of verdure seemingly floating in the ocean, then the white line of surf could be seen, and the waving plumes of the palms, and by ten o’clock we were anchored outside the entrance to the lagoon having been afforded some excitement during the last few miles by a school of porpoises. The harpoon carried by every Island boat of whatever size had been immediately ready in the bows, but no opportunity came for a successful shot. A square of white cloth flown on coming to anchor protein al boat from the lagoon, and in a short time we and all our belong- ings were aboard the ‘Chetlat’, being skilfully rowed in true sailor fashion through the lagoon entrance and over the transparent waters of the shallow lagoon to the sound of a far-echoing chanty on the part of the crew of twelve lusty rowers. A number of the inhabitants, headed by the Monegar, were assembled on the sandy shore to greet us, and I was quickly installed in the Cutcherry ; R. A. being accommodated in another building close to it. We were fortunate in finding Mr. A. M. Khan at Chetlat on Inspection Duty from his Head Quarters at the island of Ameni thirty miles to the south-east, for at his hands was received much: assistance JOURN. BomBay Nat. Hist. Soc. Chetlat: The tomb of Carpenter Primrose. Chetlat: Wauling in the Ola Vala. A Visit LO THE EACCADIVE TSEANDS 491 in many ways and a semi-official introduction to the elders of the community. , The ‘Chetlat’ is a very substantial and well-built boat con- structed by the inhabitants of the Island and presented by them to the Government in 1934 for the use of the Monegar for inter- island communication. It is consewn—not a nail in it—and rowed by twelve men. In the afternoon a visit was made to the tomb of Carpenter Primrose of the ‘Vizier’ against the eastern shore. This merchant ship, laden with cotton goods and cutlery, was wrecked on the Cheriapani Reef, sixty miles to the north-west, in June 1853. The crew found their way to Chetlat where they stayed until con- veyed to the mainland, and it would seem that Primrose was the only casualty. The memorial slab let into the wall of the tomb which was built, or rebuilt, a few years ago at the instance of old Muhammad Ali, my boatman and moopan (headman) of the island, was carved by men of the ‘General Simpson,’ a ship which was wrecked in 1863 on the north reef of Chetlat. -The -vessel sent to salve the ship was itself lost on the reef when approaching the island at night. In 1865 the ‘Lord Brougham’ was wrecked on the Cheriapani Reef and timbers of all these wrecks appear to have been utilized in construction of the island mosques. Since those days there have been no more wrecks as the shipping passes further south through the nine degree channel; but now the new Port of Cochin brings steamers to and from that port within sight of some of the islands. One of the vivid memories of that first walk on the island was the sight of the hermit crabs (Cenobit@) going about with shells on their backs, into which portable bungalow dwellings they quickly retreated when alarmed to bar the entrance with a horny claw. Housing problem completely solved! The many forms of life seen on the reef within a few minutes was astonishing. Sea slugs (Holothurians béche-de-mer) were lying about seemingly inert, in sheltered places beside the rocks, and R. A. was soon at work collecting specimens, being busily assisted by a number of children attracted to this new form of treasure hunt along the shore, every nook and cranny of which was so wonderful to us and commonplace to them. — We all drank of young coconut milk, the customary hospitality in all countries where the coconut is grown and so, quietly wander- ing through the shady palm groves with eves alert to notice all so strange and new, we made our way back to the cutcherry now my home for the ensuing ten davs. Next morning there was an official rat-hunt, part of the Mone- gar’s inspection work in pursuance of the organized methods found necessary to check the increase of these pests (Mus rattus vufinus) which have become almost entirely arboreal and do much damage to young coconuts. A few nests were found and destroyed, some half dozen rats killed, among much excitement. The men walked up the trees without rope or other aid of any kind with little apparent effort, and their great muscular development above 492. JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST: SOCIETY,+ Vol. XUI the waist due to rowing, beating coir-fibre, and climbing the trees for fruit was most noticeable. In the evening an entertainment was given by some women and girls. Sitting in a circle they beat time with the palms of their hands the while all sang to the lead of a witty lady of mature years who gave all the topical allusions suitable to the occasion : judging by the hilarious reception of the ‘hits’ she was highly successful ! The morning after arrival I went to sea in a lagoon boat. Several fish of good size failed to get hooked—all sea fish have very bony mouths, but a fine barracouda (Sphyraena commersonii) of 36 Ibs. (55 ins. by 22 ins.) was captured on a trolled bait. Of much the same size and. shape as a good seir fish he did not put up the same fight for freedom as that sporting variety of. the tunny. He has a great armament of formidable teeth, as can be seen in the photograph where he is posed with two small boys; the boy at the business end clearly registering alarm! That evening there was another entertainment, but of a religious nature, in which men acted with great fervour. The following day the Monegar was rowed away to Ameni and we settled down to the collection of specimens and to fishing. Several mornings producing few fish I took to going out from sunset to ten o’clock, and very beautiful it was under the moon and brilliant stars; but even then the sport was by: no means up to expectation, the best evening being nine Caranx (C. nigripinnis) averaging 11 pounds, all on trolled natural bait. The island fish- ermen also caught few fish by day or by night on hand lines and during my stay harpooned not more than half a dozen. One afternoon a Seir fish was harpooned close to my boat and it was most interesting to see the preliminary play of the poemeen (the crude wooden imitation of a flying fish), the tense attitude of the striker when he became aware that a fish had been lured from the depths, the hurling of the heavy fourteen foot harpoon and the thud as it struck the fish. Instantly the thick coir line is torn out of the boat, the shaft becomes disengaged. Now the man wield- ing the sculls manages the boat according to requirements and instructions of the harpooner; soon the fish is tired, brought near the boat, skilfully gaffed by the oarsman and lifted in. In such manner do these sporting island people of mid-ocean secure all creatures which swim in those seas—-except the whale, which they leave severely alone. | Harpoons are of three kinds. The heavy 11-foot shaft used for porpoises, dolphins, sharks, rays, and the like; the three pronged 14-foot shaft for seir, turtles, and such large fish as are not usually struck close to the boat; the twelve pronged 8-foot weapon used for flying fish, gar, and other small varieties found at night in the lagoons and along the reefs by aid of palm-leaf flares. The prongs of this latter, which is used in a somewhat similar form by several eastern peoples, are of bamboo or other hard wood sometimes tipped with brass. These are placed con- centrically—six on the outer circle and six on the inner, these last being two inches shorter than the outer ones. The shafts of all Journ. Bomsay Nat. Hist. Soc. pipe YETLMUE. Chetlat: A Barracouda: 36 lbs. Collecting at Chetlat. AP VISEESTOMLEHE EACCADIVE, ISLANDS | 493 are of coconut wood about 14 inches thick in the middle and tapering to each end. The fishermen are marvellously adept in the use of these crude but efficient weapons and quite evidently take pride in, and greatly enjoy, the sport which entails a high degree of skill. Distance, pace, refraction, direction, all have to be judged in the split second of the opportunity which may come at any moment. It is at night that the most varied sport can be obtained, the best conditions being when there is neither moon nor wind. The beauty of the scene is almost more than can be imagined; there is the reflecting mirror of the lagoon, the sparks flving from the torch, the dancing sparklets of the rippling water, the bronzed statuesque figure of the poised harpooner, the low-echoing undertones instructing the oarsmen, the thud of the weapon and the resulting jubilations of the crew. What memories all this recalls! The reefs at any time, and more especially at night, are in- fested with creatures it is well to avoid: clams, octopi, sea-urchins with poisonous spines, knife-edged pieces of coral await the un- wary; so on the frequent occasions when it is necessary to ease the boat over an obstruction there is always the possibility of injury to bare feet: but the fishermen seemed not to mind or take any particular care, while I was usually anticipating some mishap ! Besides harpooning and hand-line fishing beyond the outer reef nets of three sizes are used in the lagoon. The muluvala is of small mesh, about fifty feet long by five feet deep, worked from the shore by four men; with it small fish suitable as bait and for the family curry are caught as required. The'muduvala is a circular casting net for catching small fish, and has no radiating strings as on the mainland nets for these would entangle in the coral. The kadalivala is a much larger affair and is used in conjunction with the olavala, this being a rope many hundred feet in length on which are tied lengths of palm leaves, the use of it being a holiday occasion. The method was demonstrated one morning. The _ palm-leaf affair was loaded in equal parts into two boats which were rowed some four hundred yards from the shore by crews of a dozen men. At the selected spot the ropes were joined—the boats then returning in a semi-circle paying out the rope as they came. At intervals men went overboard to free the leaves from coral obstruc- tions and aid the net by wading with it to scare the fish inwards; and so the boats came to shore with but two men in each of the dozen who had gone out. Now willing hands of boys and men tail on to the ropes and haul in until the semi-circle has been reduced to dimension required for use of the kadalivala, which is taken in a boat from one corner and payed out inside the leaf met. Soon ‘this real net hems in all the fish, and quickly the strugeling catch is brought to the sandy shore where all stand around watching the rainbow sheen of fish of a dozen curious makes and shapes. There could be no speedy killing of the poor fish for among them were several surgeon fish (Acanthurus trioste- gus) of five to six pounds armed on either side of the waist with bone lancets of razor keenness which have been known to inflict 494 JOURNAL, BOMBAY (NATURAL “HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XET mortal wounds by severing an artery of the incautious handler. When not excited these weapons remain folded and_ sheathed, points towards the head, but are instantly erected as rigid weapons Gf “OllLence: There were several box fish (Ostracion cubicus) that curious handiwork of Nature which can move only two fins and tail, the scales being ossified and body square in shape. It is not eaten. Then there were one or two globe fish (Tetrodon ballistes) blown out like balloons with fright and having very funny faces: these also inedible. The island urchins have the cruel amusement of tickling these fish to cause them to inflate, then popping them off with a playful jump. The bulk of the fish taken were blue and yellow parrot fish (Pseudoscarus tetrodon) with prunes and prism snouts, about five pounds each in weight. In all there was some 150 lbs. of fish. Along the West Coast opposite Mangalore the hundred fathom line is about 45 miles away and then the ocean depth soon in- creases to one thousand fathoms and over. The islands are on a chain of peaks rising from the ocean bed 6,000 feet below, but as to the probable geological process which led to these coral atolls being formed it is necessary to refer to the chapters on the subject in Gardiner and elsewhere. Immediately beyond the edges of the fringing reefs soundings give a depth of 5,000 to 6,000 feet and more! The island of Chetlat. is: mile 1,150.yards in length by 1650 yards in width at the widest point, and contains 255 acres. The November temperature is a humid 78 to 84 degrees. The inhabit- ants number less than 900, males and females in almost equal proportion. There are 180 occupied houses. Most of the people are Melacheries, the class described as landless tree-climbers. Those who can read the Koran do not climb trees and are called Mukris. There are no dogs, crows, or land snakes; and though commissioned to collect specimens of sea-snakes none were to be found and they were not known to the islanders. The few birds and butterflies are mostly migratory. The highest part of the island is not more than 15 feet above sea level. The average rainfall is 60 inches, most of which arrives in June, July, and August. The island is not so thickly grown with palms _ as some of the others; but the quality of coir is said to be superior, probably because it is all soaked in sea water. The palms at the south end of the island are much taller than those elsewhere but I could learn no reason for this. In The Blue Lagoon (H. de Vere Stacpoole) is an account of a fight with an octopus; and finding smaller specimens in pools among the coral I witnessed the creature’s methods of attack and the inky discharge by which the whole pool is clouded when it is forced to defend itself. The two-foot tentacles could be detached by one’s fingers, but it could be well imagined how helpless one would be in the grasp of a big one, and they are known to grow to an immense size. The islanders use them as food and for fishing bait. Ap VISE TL ORME “LACCADIV by ISEANDS 495 Specimens of the Giant Clam (Tridacna), known to grow to a weight of 800 lbs., were a common sight on the reefs, the smooth pearly-white curving lips open and ready for any chance prey which might happen into the vice-like grip, the only release from which would be a severance of the powerful muscle at the base of the shell by which it is closed: for the shells are almost part of the rock on which they are found. My walking stick thrust into the open jaw of quite a-small one had to be released by use of a long-bladed knife. Deadly, absolutely, would the grasp of one be to a man caught at low tide, or when diving, for the muscle is of enormous power, nothing short of a crowbar being able to prise open or detach even a small one of ten pounds. The lagoon is on the western side and about 600 yards in width, extending almost to the length of the island. Owing to the small variation in the tide level, which is less than three feet, the outer reef is but little exposed and it is only on perhaps two days in any one, month that paddling exploration of the reef can be made; so on only one day of our ten were we able to thoroughly explore. Then R. A. added numerous treasures to his collection and I witnessed many forms of life never before revealed to my wondering eyes. My camera not being with me on that occasion I was unable to take a picture of a large sea anemone of brilliant colours which lay in shallow water: next day there was a strong breeze and deeper water, so the opportunity did not recur: how true that is of many such! Bacon has some- thing very apt which will not be inflicted on the reader, and readers of Shakespeare will recollect a very true saying. ‘He who will not when he may—’, etc. That first day of exploration on the exposed reef was of absorbing interest. Beneath almost every movable stone or piece of coral is a creature of some kind; a crab; a many-footed creature like a centipede; a brilliant little fish; a mottled eel which would rapidly undulate into a crevice, the entrance to which would be ~ speedily barred by a snake-like head full of sharp teeth; there were also sea-urchins prickly as hedgehogs, sea-stars and star-fish ; while amongst the surf of the reef a few feet away might be seen a four-foot shark. In every pool holothurians (sea slugs, béche- de-mer) of several varieties lay apparently lifeless, yet containing within them commensal life in the shape of a small fish (Fierasfer) having this strange dwelling for a lodging. This little fish, similar to most fish except that the ventral fins are absent, issues from its host when water is ejected, retreating to safety with a returning stream. It is about as long as one’s finger. One small sea anemone I found and examined. It has no bony covering and anchors its foot to a rock. . It is a coral, yet ‘secretes no coral, and consumes such life as is suitable to its digestion by sucking it in at the centre of its petal. One of the sea worms found among the coral at low tide was about a foot long with a marvellous set of feathery feelers at its mouth. It progressed like a snake and was sticky to the touch. The men said it was poisonous but, though it looked very unpleasant, it was probably harmless, Another creature impossible to investigate lived in holes 496 JOURNAL, BOMBAY \NATURAL HYSTY SOCTEIUY VVoln xt in the coral, protruding long whitey-yellow tentacles which, on being touched, were withdrawn with great rapidity: this was also said to be a harmful beast the touch of which would cause the part to swell. Many other strange forms of life were seen, and the only life above the water was a heron so exactly the colour of the background of the rocks on which he was expectantly perched as to be almost invisible. No doubt he was a very expert fisher- man. In the lagoon the expanse of water is an ever-changing picture of great beauty. The colour varies with the depth of the water and the nature of the floor, being pale green where shallow and splashed with darkest sapphire where deep pools lie; while the underlying coral rocks resemble fleeting shadows cast by clouds. Seawards is the fringing-reef beyond which the deep indigo of the ocean shows in the photographs as a line drawn across the picture. Ever is there the unceasing roar of the waves dashing over the reef, for even in the calmest weather there is a considerable surf which increases to high-tossing clouds of spray when white horses are riding at sea. Within is safety in all weathers and then the graceful island boats, fashioned in such marked contrast to the heavy dug-outs of the canoe coast (as the west coast is styled in contrast to the cataraman coast of the east side of India) are busy fishing and tending the bamboo basket traps put out for crabs and lobsters. Into the lagoon are two entrances from the sea, that to the north being the one used as the other is very shallow.. The islands are formed of coral built up from underlying banks of reef-building corals. How the banks came to be there is matter for some difference of opinion, but there must have been some upheaval as is evidenced by the masses of coral conglomerate found along the eastern face of all the island and now undergoing erosion, as can be plainly seen—and felt if you fall about on it as I did! The fringing reefs are great banks of coral which run out into .and wnder~-the Sea, that~ om «the easter side beimoy butma _hundred yards wide and dipping abruptly into the great depths of the surrounding ocean, while the western reefs shelve some hundreds of yards before they plunge into the 6,o00 feet which is the depth not half a mile away. The floor of the reef is visible at a depth of go feet, so crystal clear is the water of these seas, and it is along the dark indigo line of the deep ocean where the reef disappears from sight that the best fishing is to be had, for there are the big fish searching for their food. ‘The little fish lie in the -shallows, the big fish swim without’ wholly true of rivers, is also partly true of coral. seas. - “All over the fringing-reefs can be seen luxuriant coral inter- spersed with bays of silver sand. Great trees of coral border those’ shining valleys, while through the water glass can be seen slowly moving fish of varied hues and strange shapes wandering in seemingly aimless fashion in and out of the coral jungle: but all are there for protection or food, and some of them such -as parrot fishes and: file fishes actually feed upon the coral ‘itself AD ViSit@elLO-= foi, LACCADIVE ISLANDS 4.97 cracking the tubes like a dog cracks a bone and eating the polyps as a dog does marrow. Some of the crabs and other creatures put on a garb so closely resembling coral as to have an almost sure protection from their enemies. Certain species of crabs live at a depth of thirty fathoms which is about the extreme depth where the polyps can build. Live coral has many very beautiful colours. Rose pink, blue, brilliant yellow, purple tipped stems of many branching forms are seen, apparently waving in the pellucid water when viewed with- out the water-glass, but only these tips are alive, for the coral stems and trunks are all skeletons of the dead upon which the living coral is raised. Leaning over the side and gazing through the plate glass screen as the boat moves slowly along everything is as in an aquarium, but on what a vast scale! Marvellously are the pro- cesses of nature in its most wonderful form brought before one by such a kaleidoscopic picture. Countless thousands of millions ot the tiny builders are at work forming these reefs on which have arisen islands habitable by man. Rising above the surface the coral is broken by waves and thus ground into sand; more and more sand is formed, perhaps a great storm may arise and bring added material from the ocean bed, a bird drops a_ seed which germinates and more seeds fall, so grass and certain species of shrubs appear and bind the sand together: a coconut is borne from the distant land and so coconut trees take root, and the ques- tion may be asked as to whether man planted coconut trees on these islands or was he attracted by the trees already established ? The fish I used for trolling-baits out at sea were of various colours. “The most useful seemed to be the goat-fish (Unpenoides) so named on account of the beard-like feelers depending from the chin. These were cream colour with longitudinal — yellow stripes. When the eel-like mackerel-coloured half-beaks (Hemi- ramphus) were used at night they were very successful; and a dark green jew-fish did good work in luring a fine red perch (Lutjanus) of 13 lbs. A few sharks were- caught, 30 lbs. the largest, but nine of the fish caught at Chetlat were horse mackerel (Caranx nigripemnis). It was very disappointing not to get better fishing when so much was expected; the fishing on the Malabar coast, had been better: there 29 fish of 547 lIbs., here 15 of 172 lbs. The mornings and evenings were spent in wandering about the island looking for butterflies, insects, birds, shells, and just for the pleasure of seeing the people at work and how they lived. Only five species of butterfly were captured, all with the appearance of having been blown over from the mainland. Two kinds of bees sought nectar from the blossoms of a hardy shrub, a gecko fell from the palm-thatched roof of the cutcherry, and an occasional skink scuttled among the leaves. Dragonflies were numerous and difficult to catch; numerous crickets and grasshoppers afforded food me plenty for the several blue Rollers (Covacias .benghalensis, Ceylon and South Indian race) which hawked among the palms. Of birds of prey the only two observed were the Pale Harrier (Circus macrurus) and Montagu’s Harrier (C. cineraceus). Some 498 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XLI small birds flitting among the dense foliage of the trees could not be identified, and £ had no gun. There were no gulls. The drinking water of the island is. found by digging, the excavations being steened with coral stone. ‘hese places, as also the several bathing tanks made in a similar way, are very badly cared for and a cholera epidemic would take very heavy toll of lite. The water had a very uninviting appearance and | saw to it that all for my camp was carefully boiled, a kerosine tin at a tume. In the bathing tanks were some fresh water minnows which helped to keep down mosquitos, unpleasantly prevalent but fortunately not malaria carrying as are those on the island of Minicoy, the most southerly of the Laccadive group. The people had few domestic animals. There were two or three cows aid a few goats, so milk was known to but few of the children. Fowis were kept by a few of the more enterprising and eggs were olfered for sale, but I did not encourage sale to my camp of any provisions as there was little that this isolated community could spare. There being no shops money was not much in demand. The children were insatiable for biscuits of which a ship-load would not have sufhced, for the grown-ups wanted them as well. My own tare was simple, as always when out in camp. Dal, rice, atia, potatoes, onions, sugar, jam, ~ tea, butter, and the usual condiments met all requirements: it had not been dithcult to arrange the forty days supply for self and servants. On the whole the people looked undernourished and suffered a good deal from eye troubles: which, it was gathered later from a medical scientist, may be due to some deficiency in diet. Leaves of the horse-radish tree (Moringa pterigosperma) appeared to be the only vegetable eaten. Old and young alike were affected with skin diseases. The staple food of the islanders is rice all of which is imported from the mainland in exchange for coir rope at a price tixed by Government. No coir, no rice, so all families have to be pretty constantly at work husking the coconuts, burying the fibre on the shore in prepared pits where it is covered with coral stones for about six months, uncovering these pits, beating out the fibre on blocks of wood with wooden mallets, teasing the fibre to make it ready for twisting, and making it into rope. Then it is packed into bundles of a specified weight and size, weighed into the island store room by the cierk-in-charge, and rice given in exchange. Certain stages of the work are done by women and children—quite small girls and boys taking their share, and at most hours of the day before noon the sound of the beating mallets can be heard almost as insistent to the ear as the copper- smith in India. The meat of the coconut, the copra of commerce, is used as food—coconut rice cakes are very palatable—and the balance sold by the islanders under their own arrangements. Beyond what they get for these products of the coconut tree, and the fish they catch, they have no other principal means of subsistence. Nothing do .they grow, or can they grow, in the sandy soil; yet lantana and Journ. Bompay Nat. Hist. Soc. E: ¢ Fa Chetlat: Laccadive Islanders. My Fishing Boat. AL VISiE -TO.} TAR. LACCADIVE ISEANDS 499 the aloe plant, if permitted to flourish, would soon overwhelm the little open space that exists. The clothing of the women is much the same as worn by a similar class upon the mainland. Ordinarily the male population wears little but a loin cloth, a costume almost necessitated by the climate for any active work. Some of the men are of very fine physique, an instance being a_ hairy-chested fellow, one of my boatmen. 1 met him one night when out fish spearing and he presented a flying fish to me, one of the few seen during the whole trip. As the flying fish is much hunted by all the large predaceous fish of these seas—sword fish, bonito, and the like—their absence was a bad sign. The lite of the people is very well ordered and ruled by a simple penal code, but of crime there is little and that mostly the thett of one another’s coconuts! There is certain work, such as the launching of the larger boats or the hauling up of one into a boat shed, which is a communal duty. For this, and for the daily coir and rice transaction, the people are called by a peculiar cry started from the required place of assembly and repeated from house to house. It closely resembles the howling of jackals! The boat sheds are of coconut beams and rafters thatched with palm leaves, these roofs abutting upon uprights of coral stone. The eaves are close to the ground so that the boats are well protected from the monsoon storms. The dwelling houses are of similar but neater construction and well fitted for the climate. All face north, and the walls are of coral stone quarried by much labour from various places on the island. The Laccadive islands are sometimes visited by destructive cyclones, and evidence of these great storms is to be seen on the Eastern side of most of the islands. Great masses of coral are torn up from the ocean bed and piled to a height of many feet, where they act as rugged breakwaters. Such storms must have devas- tated Chetlat on several occasions. On the 15th April 1847 several of the islands were almost denuded of coconut trees, many hundreds of the inhabitants perished, and many houses were destroyed. The islands of Kalpeni, Androth, and Kiltan—the latter only 30 miles from Chetlat—were devastated, so perhaps it was that storm which piled up on the north-eastern reef of the island the great masses of coral. Since those days the population of all the islands has greatly increased: in 1795 there were but one hundred inhabitants on Chetlat, and Kardamat was uninhabited. Such storms on these mid-ocean islands are terrible visitations; coconut trees are blown about like feathers to the accompaniment of a deadly hail of coconuts. A feeling of expectation, of something likely to happen, always accompanied the exit through the lagoon channel with the roar of the surf on either side and the sight of the swiftly moving mosaic floor of the reef crystal clear below the boat. Soon, when the rod was set and the bait trailed thirty yards behind, one had leisure to sit in quiet contemplation and enjoyment of the hour as the sun began to sink behind the great bank of clouds which arose every evening on the Western horizon. On the one hand 500 jOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST CSOCIELY, Wok, Xi the foaming surf of the reef backed by the feathery palms on the further shore of the beautiful lagoon; all around the quickly changing hues of the water now looking cool and peaceful where but an hour ago it was glittering under a fierce sun; and along the horizon the enormous clouds formed massive purple battlements, castles in the air, the illusion of snow-topped mountains, static too, as if real and not unstable, so slowly did they change their. shape: then the silver changed to gold as the sinking sun shot great rays to the zenith and the dying day rapidly gave way to the wonder of the tropic night. , This was the hour when one might expect to have the line torn off the reel with all the resultant excitement and expectation. Is it a seir, or a Caranx, or perhaps a shark? One soon got to know the manner and feel of the various species. Some, like the red perch, would at once make for the floor and a coral retreat from which dislodgement would be difficult, so whenever the bait was. seized it was well to ailow as little liberty as possible: in anticipation of such happenings tackle has to be strong. A few good fish were lost for one reason and another but the sport was not up to what had been. hoped for; it might have been better six weeks later, and should another trip be made to these seas it would be during December and January to a locality ascertained shortly before return to the mainland some weeks later. There would be sword fish, seer, bonito, perch, caranx, and other sport- ing fish in great variety. At night the sea was highly phosphorescent. At each. move- ment of the oars globules of light floated away,. brilliant patches of. jelly fish and other forms of marine life went past, and on several occasions large patches of phosphorescent light floated from. below to remain a minute and then fade away; what this was the men could not explain and it never occurred close enough to be investigated. I used to let the men put out a hand-line and keep themselves amused by singing chanties as we rowed along. Noise seemed rather to attract fish than otherwise;' and when we occasionally hauled in the lines to light palm-leaf flares in order to try and harpoon a seir fish it was often that the trailing bait would be: taken immediately after within a few feet of the boat. Some-. times we would get close to another boat and then the picture: silhouetted in the night by the spark-throwing torch would be of a very striking description. On a future trip an automatic. camera flashlight apparatus must form part of the equipment. When a hooked fish was reeled in to be gaffed great lines and flares of phosphorescence were set up far below by its wild gyrations and all eyes would be out of the boat to judge of the size. Many were the laughing comments on the lengthy business of playing with the rod a fish which would have been summarily hauled in by themselves using a hand line, and jerked into the boat. Old Muhammad Ali used to be doubled up with laughter at the idea; and when one evening the butterfly net with a small receptacle at the end of it was skimmed along the surface of the water as the boat moved quietly under the full moon for the AGA Sie ROME ALAGCCADIVE WSLANDS 501 purpose of collecting plankton for scientific examination, he and the crew, thinking this to be another method of the mad Feringhi for catching fish, laughed so that tears streamed and the merri- ment ceased only when the scream of the reel afforded other excitement. All that I had was strange. None of them had ever before seen a fishing reel. Said old Ali with much emphasis, ‘More than seventy years have I lived, and never have I seen such a tamasha as this!’ It was old Muhammad Ali, headman of Chetlat, who hired to me for the remainder of the trip the use of his boat with crew of eight men and himself as Tindal, and a very excellent crew and craft it was. He was then blind in the right eye but now, alas! has lost the sight of the other from the same cause, that very common trouble among eastern people in particular—cata- tact. Never again will he see the foaming surf of the reefs, the marvellous sunsets, the tremendous majesty of the monsoon seas and storms known to him since childhood: but I hope again at some future time to take him out fishing and let him have the feel of a good fish on my rod. The ‘Valia Bukkari,’ in which we had sailed from the main- land in 54 hours, is slightly larger than the ‘Poo Odam’ which is 4 15 tons burthen. All night we sailed quietly along in the ‘Poo Odam’—the Flower Ship—to wake at dawn after hours of peaceful slumber in that warm air and look over the immensity of the grey of the sea shot with soft hues; there was a brief pause, then with a smile the day broke to reveal the palm trees of Bitra Par seemingly floating in the water at the northern end of a great lagoon seven miles long by three wide encircled by a ring of creamy breakers. The main entrance is at the southern end, and there is a possible way in over the reef close to the east of the island of which I had no knowledge or would have urged we make for it; but before I realized what was being done we were inside the lagoon through a small high-tide gap known to the old man, and ‘mighty proud he was to have found his way in! But pride has a fall, and he wasn’t so perky when the wind failed entirely, for, it took within half an hour of dark to kedge the boat to our destination; and the crew were wholly fed up with 18 kedges of 20 minutes each, besides rowing R. A. three miles to the island to shorten the miseries of a bad sailor, for the boat rolled much in the calm lagoon. That night I again slept on my six-by-two piece of deck, lulled by the unceasing surge of the sea on the reef, after having eaught with a hand-line a 15 Ib. kaduva (caranx) and a red perch, both of them very pale in colouring, the result of habitat on the sandy floor of the lagoon. Next morning tents and everything else required was landed and camp pitched among the palms. Bitra is uninhabited, except for one family from Chetlat which lives there during the fair weather months to look after the coconut trees and make sugar from the palm juice. In one of the pictures the man is seen walk- ing up one of the trees near my tent to take away in a bamboo bucket the juice which has collected during the night in the small 4 502 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL Hist. SOCIETY, Vol. XLi coconut gourd placed the previous evening beneath a cut made to receive it. “the palm juice thas: to be collected in. the ‘early inorning as these Muhammadan people may not drink the potent spirit which can be made from the fermented liquid. The trees belong to Chetlat, but all the islands have equal fishing rights, so 1 was not surprised when the caretaker complained that a fishing party from one of the distant isles had raided all the coconuts. This man had pigeon-toed, widely splayed feet well adapted for the climbing of coconut trees—which is done without extraneous aid of any description. I saw some similar feet at Chetlat, and it is likely that the palm-climbing done from early youth causes this adaptation which, were it not that the women never climb trees, would probably become an inherited characteristic. All the men of the crew could walk to the mast head in just the same effortless manner. The famiity occupied a house, on the eastern side of the island, of the usual coral-stone palm-thatched type with a well close by. They lived in the utmost squalor, in the dirtiest state imaginable as to surrounding’s, and the well was full of leaves and debris. At the south-east corner of the island is an excavation about two feet square containing somewhat brackish water. This was at once aah out for use of my camp and we soon got used to the taste of it; but I liked it best, or disliked it least, made into tea. During ne monsoon months both these supplies are too salty for use, and until the island has much increased in size—it is now but 28 acres—it will be likely to remain uninhabitable on this account. The night was cool and there were no mosquitoes; rats and crabs did not trouble me, but my servant said they tried to pene- trate his curtains and share his bed! I had feared the mosquitoes and sandflies might be troublesome as much of the island is covered with an evergreen bush (Scaevolu Koenigit), called kanni by the natives, which grows in clumps like a_ rhododendron. There was also much of a coarse tussocky grass, two kinds of convolvulus—white on the bushes, purple where it spread over the sand—and a few other grasses. The island is 200 yards wide at the broadest part and 1,100 yards long. ‘There is evidence along the eastern shore of some great storm having torn large blocks of coral from far below, as is seen on Chetlat to a greater extent. The coconut palms on this island were definitely not sea- borne but planted by the islanders. As at Chetlat, so here, we had only part of two days on which the’ tide permitted exploration of the fringing reef; then a large area was uncovered to the north-west and many treasures gathered by R. A., assisted by the boatmen and my servant Rangaswamy who had become an ardent collector of shells. Nothing very rare in shells was found. There were many large Pterocera chiragra and P. lambis (Trochus) from which pearl buttons are cut and the flesh of which, as also of the octopus (vern: appalu) found in plenty on the reefs, is eaten by the people: this latter has a pleasant shrimpy taste and the tentacles are used for baiting hooks. A ViSiBV RO TE LACCADIVE ISLANDS 503 A good specimen of Mitra episcopalis was found in the sand at the south end of the lagoon, but on the whole the shells were rather disappointing as the islanders have taken to collecting for sale in the Mangalore and Calicut bazaars. A heart-shaped sea- urchin, with shape of a star fish impressed on the carapace as by a wax seal, was an interesting find; as also a composite coral snell, a cirripod of the crab family of which relationship one would never have suspected it. It seemed apparent that the south end of the lagoon is filling up, as a considerable area is exposed at ordinary tide, and a fair sized bank about fifteen feet high is always above sea level. On this were a number of sea gulls, some terns, and a few migratory waders. Less than a hundred years ago sea birds bred in great number on, Bitra itself but owing to persecution -have long since ceased to frequent the island for any purpose. Rats (Mus rattus vufinus) are the only mammals; and the only birds seen were a water rail, unidentitied, which crept among the bushes close to the tent, a blue roller (Ceylon race), and a Montagu’s Harrier. Shore birds began to arrive soon after we did, so before we left I had seen whimbrel, golden plover, avocets, stints, herons and a large black and white stork. The only butterfly seen was a very tired specimen of Melanitis ismene which settled at the very door of my tent after the whole island had been searched for several days. Dragonflies were numerous. A large turtle (vern: miragam) came out of the sea one night and laid a great store of eggs which the men soon dug out of the sand. Had they secured the turtle it would have been quickly boiled down for oil with which to preserve the woodwork of their boats; and a horrible smell there is when this operation is in hand. The large net (ola-vala), brought from Chetlat for the purpose, was dragged in the lagoon with much the same result as before, the bulk of the catch being jew fish (Pseudoscarus dussumieri) most of them about tr Ibs. in weight. There was also a curious fish with large luminous eyes, a near relative of the cuttle-fish, and some surgeon-fish (Acanthurus triostegus). All these, except the inedible box-fish (Ostracion) and some _ spiny globe-fish, were cleaned, split, and dried in the sun on sticks placed between poles stuck in the sand. This was also done with the fish I caught outside the reef, so soon the whole place reeked of the oil-exuding flesh covered with blue-bottle flies, and it was a marvel to me how it ever became fit for consumption. As at Chetlat we found no sea-snakes which are apparently absent from these seas though so numerous close to the West Coast. The fishing was-a little better than at Chetlat, but not much. There, 15 fish weighing 171 lbs.: here, 37 fish of 426 lbs. which was far below expectation, as to size at any rate. Seir (Cybium commersonii, vern: ayakura), were seen’once or twice leaping high out of the water in furious pursuit of shoals of small fish, but only one was taken, and that with the harpoon. The largest fish was a 90 |b. shark (Cacharius, vern:-sravu):in which were four young ones 22 inches long. Another shark which may have been about the same size got off after a long fight, the hook 504. JOURNAL, BOMBAY: NATURAL HIST. “SOCIETY, Vol Xia coming away for no apparent reason. Most of the fish were Caranx (C. nigripinnis) of two varieties; one, (vern: molayam) having a larger eye than the other called kannam. They averaged iy Ibs.,~ the largest -beme -r19"1bs. The reds perch” were Luijaintts sp. and a lovely green perch (Leth?inus) of 5 Ibs. | Even’ with the aid of Dr. Day’s well-known work on fishes we did not find it easy to make correct identifications of the 47 specimens collected at the two islands. All my fishing was by troiling any species of small fish netted in the lagoon. or along the reefs, and most of it after dark. It seemed better to so mount the bait on a single hook as to prevent any spin: this I also found when fishing on the West Coast of India. One day the rod gathered a fair harvest of fish. There were two sharks of 40 and 22 lbs., two Caranx of 21 and 7 IMbs., one gar-pike and two red perch, one purple ballistes (Erythrodon), and three small perch taken by hand line from a great depth, their eyes popping out in surprise at such an adventure! These were Serranus mineatus. The method of sinking a baited hook was to hitch a coral stone on to it by means of a narrow strip of palm fibre; when at required depth a sharp jerk released the stone, The Research Assistant was indefatigable at his work. The opening up of all fish taken was always done for examination as to parasites and, almost without exception all were infested with one kind or another, the harpooned seir fish contained a parasite as big as a thrush’s egg—named Trematode. It quite put me off eating fish, to know they harboured such creatures. With the new moon of the 26th November R. A. had certain ceremonies to perform and my boat people commenced the Ramzan, the Muhammadan month of feast, by having a day of rest from seeing me catch fish; but after that they claimed the permitted dispensation for travellers so far as abstention from water 1s concerned. I always let the men have a hand-line out when I was trolling, and old Ali used to like pulling the line off the reel to get out the usual thirty yards and occasionally feel the pull of the bait. Several times he had the thrill of a taking fish and the feel of a fish on a rod the like of which he had never seen in all the long years of his life. The reel was a great source of interest. Several of the men had inflamed eyes and were greatly pleased with the cardboard shades I made for them, so much so that they wore them at night when out at sea! One day there was great excitement when we were returning to camp across the lagoon. The men suddenly pulled at racing speed; then one of them dived overboard to come spluttering up and ask for one of my large hooks on a hand-line; down he dived again and away tore the line with a big fish at the end of it! Soon the fish was hauled alongside and lifted in with the gaff: 36 lbs. Chilenus undulatus, called by the men chandni ba-la-la. ‘A most noble jew fish’ as Tom Cringle said to Mr. Wagtail. This peculiar method of fish catching was explained to me. The fish is seen in the clear water to swim away and its habit AR Visit TE O” THE. LACCA DIVE: LSEANDS 505 of taking refuge in a clump of coral is’ known, also that it is so frightened that it will stick its head into a crevice and not attempt to swim off when a man dives after it. The first dive locates it, the second time the bend of the hook is pushed gently along the side of the gills until the corner of the fleshy mouth ‘is reached, when an inward motion with a quick pull sends the point in and the fish is hooked! One day we went to the south end of the lagoon and three more of nearly the same size were secured in a similar way. They have protuberant lps like those of mahsir and a single row of teeth, the dog-like canines projecting at a forward angle. The tail is broad, there are curious fleshy ridges along the dorsal and ventral fins, and on the shoulder is a hump reminiscent of that on Indian cattle: on the blue scales and gill-plates are rusty-red linoleum-like patterns. The dazzling white of the coral sands necessitates glare glasses when the sun is out, and when it is not out. During the hours of glare and heat there is not much life to be seen, but as the evening closes in the hidden population of the sands issues forth. Where the sand was before smooth, or perhaps rippled by the ebbing tide, hundreds of crabs emerge from their burrows to seck food and scuttle about in all directions, nipping the bare toes if one stands still for but a moment, and difficult to avoid treading upon if walking quickly. They are of several species varying from yellow to olive-green or grey; and many are really beautiful in the patterned designs upon their bodies. Some have periscopic eyes (Ocypode ceratopthalma), eyes on stalks which they lay back- wards when crouching for concealment and raise to find out if all is clear for a forward movement. There is nothing new under the sun! If pursued they run into the water where they crouch in imagined concealment and are casily caught between finger and thumb. Besides the crabs there are other concealed creatures. Sand shell-binders form long casts which are very difficult to extract unbroken, and even more difficult to keép undamaged for museum purposes. And then there are the Sabellae which live in colonies and can be seen at low-tide like a number of tubes; when covered by the incoming tide a beautiful fringe composed of the gills comes out like a plume of feathers. One knows that behind all one sees is a purpose and a plan, but how to arrive at the truth? Marvel- lous are those scientists who have unravelled so many of the secrets of Nature. The magnificent lagoon of over twenty square miles in extent is an immense tropical aquarium in which can be seen, as we move quietly along in the boat, every kind of coral and fish of many brilliant hues and strange appearance. Football stockings ! School Blazers! Anything of that kind. So unused are they to any alarm that one can watch them unobserved. No doubt there are voracious enemies in the seeming paradise—indeed I often saw great splashes of feeding fish amongst the partly submerged clumps of coral against the reefs—but out in the lagoon all appeared peaceful in those pellucid gardens. Here is a_ place where scientists could spend four or five months in Nature’s 506 JOURNAL, BOMBAY, NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XLI Wonderland in perfect security as to climate and weather, and at a small expenditure. Those marvellous corals! The coral polyps cannot live above the surface, so when the structures reach just beyond the ordinary action of waves they die. It is only the upper part that is alive, so the living part of the reef and the clumps of coral in the lagoon may be only a few inches thick, and all below that level dead as ancient rock. Growing after the manner of trees budding and branching the appearance of the coral seen below the surface—or with the water-glass in the deep transparent water over the reefs, is aptly likened to a forest of trees. There are many varieties of coral and all are not of this branching description. There are star corals and brain corals, mushroom and fungoid corals, to mention only a few, which are not reef-building and can be picked up in both dead and living state as one paddles about, many of them showing wonderful geo- metrical designs most fascinating to study under a magnifying glass. The growing tips of the branching corals are rose-pink, brilliant yellow, delicate blue-green of many hues, creamy white, purple, and even black; and when the reef is exposed at low tide the staghorn coral jutting in large patches above the surface has the appearance of gorse upon a common. Some pieces of red coral we found, tubipora, of which the live growth has not been discovered on the Laccadives. It is known on the east coast of Africa, and perhaps grows at a great depth, for some of the reef-building corals work at as much as thirty fathoms, and fragments may have been torn from the ocean bed at time of great storms. It is not plentiful. All too soon our allotted time came to an end; the ten days’ rice was finished; we were overdue to arrive at Kadamat island away to the south-east; so on the afternoon of the 2nd December - we anchored outside to await the breeze which would arrive soon after dark. For the last time I gazed over the placid waters of the vast lagoon. All through the starlit night of the 2nd December we sailed over calm seas from Bitra and at dawn next day sighted the five mile line of palm trees denoting Kadamat, while a few miles to the south could be seen Ameni, the principal island of the Northern Group of the Laccadive Archipelago. Soon after daybreak the night breeze died away and it was but slow progress we made, the tedium being diverted by the sight of a school of dolphins for which the harpoon was quickly made ready ; but we were not so successful as the- men of Barlow’s ship in 1661, ‘. . . . , and one day there came two dolphins about our ship and in the evening one of our men struck one of them with a ‘‘fisgige’’’, and he draws for the reader quite a good picture of a dolphin and a flying fish ‘on which the dolphin doth prey for his food many times.’ Drawing nearer to the north end of the lagoon we were within hail of a one-man fishing boat which came to us for exchange of news. He had a flying fish trailing behind on a stout white cotton hand-line in hopes of sword fish or sezr. No ‘doubt he did not A VISED EO LE EACCADIV EE ISEAN DS 507 wish that a dolphin should take his bait, for it would be more than one man’s work to hold and harpoon one of those vigorous creatures: ‘... . and not long after we took a fish with a. hook and line which weighed about sixty pound, which had a long snout or bill, of two feet long, which we ate, he being very good meet,’ that would have pleased him better ! At last, we made the entrance of the lagoon, and slowly gliding in sailed and poled along for two and a half miles a few yards from the edge of the sandy shore, accompanied by some of the people curious to see the white man whose visit to their island they had long anticipated. Opposite the centre of the island we came to anchor, to land amidst a concourse of the inhabitants headed by the Muhammadan Hospital Assistant who had come across from Ameni on inspection duty. Soon we gathered the local news—a rice boat had just arrived from Mangalore and there were letters for me; a seir fish was harpooned yesterday; a big sword fish was speared last week; bonito had not been seen for some time; the Monegar at Ameni wishes to have early news of my arrival. Soon we were comfortably housed, I in the Cutchery—the Court House of the Magistrate, the Research Assistant in the School building now closed for the Muharram. Now that we had arrived at this populous island of 900 inhabitants my crew had to strictly observe the fast of Ramzan so could not be reasonably asked to spend long hot hours out to sea: a mental note was made that a visit to the islands should not coincide with any religious feast or fast. The first day, however, I went out fishing, and was fortunate in witnessing an unusual affair which is probably seldom seen by white people. In the early morning we rowed across the shallow two-mile width of the lagoon to cross the reef at high tide; then, letting out thirty yards of line from the reel, two caranx of the same large-eyed species taken at Bitra were caught on the small yellow-striped goat-fish (Chilenus sp.) which was the bait most commonly obtained here. We failed by twenty feet to cut off a porpoise undulating on the surface—the harpoon was not ready. How often does the sportsman, or the photographer, miss oppor- tunity from not being ready! Then a turtle, too carelessly stalked, dived as the boat approached, and a second attempt also failed. Now came the commencement of a memorable hunt. A_ long way off some men were playing the poemeen—the dummy flying fish —to entice seir from the depths beyond the edge of the shelving reef, and from them came loud shouts the purport of which, understood by my men, caused great excitement. Racing to the scene we found a school of porpoise rolling about bewildered by the noise of several boats endeavouring to encircle them. I thought they would be harpooned, but that was not the game. Soon other boats came up, and with fourteen boats joining in the hunt the shoal was hemmed in towards the reef and herded in the direction of the main entrance. There was a great shouting and banging of oars on the water and thumping of thole-pins amid great 508 «JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL CATST SOCKETY. Vol, Al excitement. At this time I took a photo of the men, and again of the poor porpoises confused and not knowing where to go. Now the shoal is in the entrance channel to the lagoon, the boats close in, the shoal is cut off and forced towards the shallow water near the shore. Now from each boat leaps a man with ready knife, rapidly each poor helpless wallowing beast is slashed behind the head, stabbed in the side, and in a few minutes the beautiful light green water of the lagoon is crimson beneath the blazing sun. All this is done with exulting shouts amid great excitement, and now the men stand around, hand on hips, watching the poor stricken inoffensive creatures pumping out their heart’s blood while threshing round and round on the coral stones in their death agony. In the photographs the result of this is written on the hides. One, badly wounded, escaped over the reef to the sea, but being quickly pursued by seven boats was harpooned and towed back to he with the others. Eleven had been killed, ten porpoises, of which one was a young one of about 200 lbs., and one dolphin. I estimated that not less than 6,000 lbs. of meat had been secured within five minutes! No wonder the men had been so excited, for it would seem that it is not often the porpoises are found in such a favour- able situation for a drive. The last occasion was said to have been five years previously. As soon as the turmoil had calmed down there were whisper- ings and glances in my direction and I at once saw what was afoot. Backshish! From me! Why? I told them, by signs not to be misunderstood, ‘nothing doing!’ For why should I, as good a shouter and banger as any of them with my crew of six men, why should I pay? And just then one of the men trod on a sole concealed in the sand so there was other distraction, and the fish being soon captured I claimed it for my breakfast. “My backshish’, said I, and they all laughed. The porpoises were common porpoises (Phocaena phocaena), and the dolphin the common dolphin (Delphinus delphis), a cetacean, or marine mammal. It is strange that this latter should have been with the porpoises. Perhaps, like the famous New Zealand ‘Pelorus Jack’, he preferred to live a lonely life) or) haverthe company of cousins rather than nearer relatives. There are nine species of cetacean in the Arabian Sea. That afternoon the whole island was festooned with strips of the dark-red flesh, so the people had a great feast after sunset, renewed in the early hours of the morning in anticipation of the long day of abstention from food and drink. It had been a most blood-thirsty sight to witness, and strange to see these men now Muhammadans, but many of them markedly Hindu in appearance, savagely frenzied in the murder they did. In 1795 this island was uninhabited and it is probable it was peopled by converts made in the time of Tippoo Sultan of Mysore. Leaving the people to the division of their spoil I walked quietly back to camp along a winding path beneath the shady palms. It was pleasing to see knee-high grass and a few quietly grazing tethered cows and to note that the people of this island are JOURN. BomBAY Nat. Hist. Soc. | Kadamat: ) 521) X §. For description of colour see the preceding article of this series (7, p. 278). Fig. 2.—The Tor Mahseer, Barbus (Tor) tor (Hamilton) (Vide supra PP- 521-523) X4. Plate. WI. Types of lips in Tor Mahseer, Barbus (Tor) tor (Hamilton). -Fig. 1.—Lateral view of head and anterior part of body of a specimen, 485 mm. in total length, from the Barak River, Assam, showing greatly hypertrophied lips x 4/5. Figs. 2-4.—Ventral surface of head and anterior part of body of 3 young specimens of Barbus (Tor) tor (Hamilton) from the Eastern Doons, showing stages in the enlargements of the lips and of the median lobe. X 1}. Piao Ti: Lateral view of the specimen of Barbus (Tor) tor (Hamilton) from the Barak River, Assam, x ca. 2/5. NOTES ON SOME INDIAN BIRDS. By EF FN LownHEr) Mo8: 040k ah.Z.s: (With 6 plates). IV.—Tue Mansuum District. (Continued from page 424 of Vol. xl). At the end of 1932, when I married, I had already made up my mind to give up bird photography as I felt it would not be right to continue taxing my health and strength to the extent which the work involves in the plains. In the beginning of the following February, however, I was unexpectedly posted to Dhanbad, in the Manbhum District. Here, the graceful slopes of Parasnath, the highest hill in Bihar, with the beautiful forest country round the Topchanchi reservoir at its feet, held out such promises of a rich and varied bird life, that my intentions were quickly for- gotten, and I soon found myself keener than ever in the pursuit of my hobby. As a result I can now claim that never before, nor since, have I been so successful with the camera as I was during the three years I was stationed in this district. Let me say at once that during this period I added the photographs of sixty-seven new birds to my collection, a fact which, perhaps, justifies an attempt to describe my camera experiences here, or rather in that part of the district which forms the Dhanbad sub-division. It is not only on account of its wonderful bird life that the Manbhum district will always remain green in my memory; it was here too that my wife and I were shown such kindness and received such hospitality on all sides from the mining community as we feel cannot exist elsewhere in India. But this is not all; it was in this district also that I first made the acquaintance of Sakroo Mahato. Aged about thirty, on the small side, but well built and wiry to a degree, he was intelligent above his station and was recommended to me by a friend who had found him to be a big game slikari possessing considerable knowledge of bird and insect life as well. Sakroo’s boyhood, as I came to know later, was spent looking after cattle and goats, and in those early years he had mastered the art of snaring birds at their nests and learnt not only to distinguish the calls and notes of the different species to be found near his home, but also to imitate them. I have told elsewhere of how, when he first came into my service, Sakroo performed the almost incredible feat of finding twelve Nightjars’ nests in one day. Nevertheless, in spite of his know- ledge of birds and their nests, Sakroo’s ignorance with regard to some of the resident species was amazing. For instance, although NOTES ON SOME INDIAN BIRDS 527 he knew the Rock Horned Owl and could imitate its call to perfection, he had no idea of where to look for its eggs, nor did he know that Crested Swifts were to be found near his home, and he had failed to connect the Pitta with its nest. I could continue quoting such instances but I prefer to remember Sakroo for his virtues, one of which was his aptitude to learn. This, and the other gifts with which he had been blessed by Nature, coupled with the fact that he was working on his own terrain, which he knew as well as the palm of his hand, made me soon realise that in Sakroo I had a shikari without peer. Having praised Sakroo according to his deserts, I am reminded of another shikari (Guffara, of Shalabug, near the Anchar Lake), who was in my employ during 1924 and 1931. When the time came for me to return to duty at the end of my first visit to Kashmir, Guffara wanted a chitty to enable him to secure employ- ment in the future, and, sui more, produced a number of letters given by previous employers, to guide me as to what I was expected to say of him. These were kept carefully in the cover of an old novel given him by a ‘Captan Sahib’ who must have possessed a delightful sense of humour as the title of the novel was All Men are Liars. But it is high time I returned to my muttons and said something concerning the district. The Manbhum district is frequently referred to in the New Fauna and elsewhere as being in Bengal whereas in fact it forms the eastern part of the Chota Nagpur division in Bihar and lies between 22° 43’ and 24° 4! North Latitude and 85° qo! and 86° 54’ East Latitude. It contains an area of 4,147 square miles and is bounded on the north by the districts of Hazaribagh and the Sonthal Parganas; on the east by Burdwan, Bankura and Midnapore—all part of Bengal; on the south by Singhbhum, and on the west by Ranchi and Hazaribagh. Purulia is the adminis- trative head-quarters, but the district is divided into two parts, Dhanbad being the head-quarters of the sub-division with an area of 803 square miles. The country generally is flat, with a gradual fall in an easterly direction. On the north-west is a range of hills, some of con- siderable height, with the south-eastern slopes of Parasnath (4,480 feet) just inside the district. With the exception of a fair amount of rice cultivation there are no agricultural activities, the majority of inhabitants being occupied in mining coal, in the output of which mineral the Jharia field, situated in the district, is far and away the largest in India. Except along the Grand Trunk road, and in the vicinity of the hills in the north-west of the district, trees are comparatively few in number, and the only jungle that exists is also to be found on these same hills. The commonest tree, and one which is plentiful, is the Flame of the Forest or palas. Others frequently met with are the mango, pipal, mhowa, simal and jamun, and on the hill sides, bamboo. All the rivers have an easterly or south-easterly course, and as is usual with hill-fed streams, their beds are almost entirely 528° JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL Bist. SOCK EY. 1Vol Gen dry during the greater part of the cold season, and throughout the hot weather. They are not navigable and are subject to sudden and violent freshets which are usually of short duration. The principal rivers are the Barakar, which marks the whole of the northern boundary, and the Damodar, which, roughly speak- ing, divides the district into two parts, and which, with the Barakar, also divides the district from Burdwan. Several tanks overgrown with weeds exist, but with the excep- tion of the Jharia Water Board’s reservoir at Topchanchi, there is no water of any expanse; consequently any species of duck is a vara avis, though snipe are fairly plentiful in the paddy fields during the winter months. Cattle and Little Egrets abound, while most ponds with any vegetation round their edges are tenanted by at least one pair of Dabchicks, Moorhens and Bronze- winged Jacanas. Round the Topchanchi reservoir an occasional Grey and Purple Heron, and more rarely a Black Ibis, may be seen, but where they breed I never found out. The Night Heron, Little Cormorant and Whiskered Tern breed locally in colonies, but, speaking generally, the district is not popular with water-fowl or waders. Considering the limited area suitable to their existence, game birds, if not common, are nevertheless not poorly represented. Red Jungle-fowl, Painted Spur-fowl and Peafowl occur in small numbers, but only in the vicinity of the well-wooded hills. Because of persecution both by the gun-license holder and the Sonthal, all three species are intensely shy and difficult to approach and seldom come out into the open except to drink, towards dusk. In this connection I ought to mention that the colliery manager is a very keen shikari, and many spend all Sunday in quest of what they may obtain, frequently motoring out fifty or more miles pour la chasse. The Sonthal is an even mightier hunter, and being a deadly shot with bow and arrow, and carrying these at all times, whether in the field or jungle, is greatly responsible for the small number of game birds found. In suitable country, Grey Partridge are to be seen, and more frequently heard, but the Black Partridge I came across only occasionally, and then always near the Jamuni river. The Jungle Bush-Quail occurs locally but the Common Indian Bustard-Quail is fairly numerous in cultivation and scrub. The Common Sand Grouse and Painted Partridge I never saw though I have shot both (each once only) in the neighbouring district of Hazaribagh, fifteen miles distant from Parasnath. The Stone-Plover is somewhat scarce, a remark which also applies to the Yellow-wattled Lapwing, but the Green Pigeon plentiful. I never saw the Emerald Dove, and the Purple Wood-Pigeon but once. The scrub jungle harbours a wealth of bird-life—Common and Franklin’s Nightjars, Ioras, Thick-billed and Tickell’s Flower- peckers, Yellow-eyed and Jungle Babblers, White-eyes, Little Minivets and Common Wood-Shrikes, to mention only the most common species. Wherever palas and mhowa trees occur,’ and even about habitations, Brahminy Mynahs, Bay-backed Shrikes, Large Cuckoo-Shrikes and Jerdon’s Chloropsis are common, while | | JourN. BomBay Nat. HisT. Soc. LESeN Boar ATER -AT THE ENTRANCE OF The tail is spread fanwise for support. ~ A GREEN BEE E all NOTES ON SOME INDIAN BIRDS 529 a simal tree, as often as not, provides a nesting site for a pair of Indian Orioles or Large Parrakeets. Here too are found the Sirkeer and a number of other species of cuckoo. It will not be out of place to remark now that Cuculus c. canorus arrives in this and the neighbouring districts of Chota Nagpur about the middle of April and is resident for nearly two months; that the notes—wuck- wuck-wuckoo, or wuckoo-wuckoo—of the Indian Cuckoo may also be heard throughout April and May. In spite of the most diligent searching, neither I nor my shikaris came across an egg which could possibly be attributed to either of these species, nor were they ever noted on the return passage. Can it be that the return migration is made by a different route? Near the edge of heavier jungle, but outside it, the Green Barbet is found, and inside, the Common Pitta, Orange-headed Ground-Thrush, Spotted Babbler and Shama. Such jungle occurs on all the medium sized hills rising to 2,000 feet. Nalas, festooned with various kinds of creepers, are here frequent and _ provide ideal nesting-sites for three species of Flycatchers, as also an occasional Large Green-billed Malkoha. In the forest-clearings, and the bamboo jungle, I always expected to find the Large Racket- tailed Drongo but never once saw the bird. I am confident this species does not occur on Parasnath or the neighbouring hills, or in the Tundi range, as Sakroo did not know it when I showed him Dissemurus p. grandis in the forest at the foot of Jumra pahar in the Hazaribagh district, not fifty miles distant. Else- where throughout the Chota Nagpur division the species is common. But once again I seem to have missed my cue as I did not set out to tell of the different birds which one might. expect to see in the Manbhum district but to describe some of my camera experiences there. Uninteresting though it may sound, the first bird whose photo- graph I added to my collection in this district was the Green Bee-Eater. Numbers dig their tunnels in the low perpendicular banks beside the Grand Trunk Road down to which the paddy fields often run. Other favourite nesting sites are in the sandy banks of the valley streams, now dry in April and May. Digging oper- ations were already considerably advanced with the pair I had under observation, sufficiently so for the birds to be right out of sight while at work. Even so it was noticeable that although only one bird at a time usually devoted itself to tunnelling, it sometimes happened that male and female were inside the passage together, when it seemed that while the one was engaged in exca- vating, the other employed itself in throwing out the loose earth. After working for a few minutes, always they left the tunnel together. Later, on 30 April, when the male and female Bee- Eaters were repeatedly observed flying in and out of their nest-hole with food—usually grasshoppers—in their bills, arrangements were made to photograph them at home. During the three succeeding evenings I discovered that only one bird remained overnight in the nesting tunnel, the other using the leafy twig of a mango tree hard by on which to sleep. 530 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol: XLI So gradually was the hide introduced that the Green Bee- Eaters paid it no attention. Successful photography was, how- ever, an almost impossible matter owing to the way in which the birds flew straight into the tunnel without first alighting at its mouth. The result was that the exposures made the first morning merely showed a blur of movement. Accordingly, the next session saw me resort to strategy. If I hissed as the Bee- Eater was on the point of entering the tunnel, perhaps the bird would alight for a second at its mouth and give me the opportunity I wanted. The plan worked better than I dared hope, and during the next fifteen minutes I obtained two successful pictures, one a profile and the other a back view, with the head partly in the tunnel. The fan-like spread of the tail will be noted, and the manner in which the long median feathers are pressed against the bank face. Writing of the Green Bee-Eater calls to mind the curious and tragic accidents which sometimes befall birds. While out for a walk one morning I noticed a Green Bee-Eater sally forth from its perch in pursuit of some insect. The chase led the bird round a babool tree and then in my direction. The next moment a grasshopper settled just where I was going to put my foot. A split-second later, the Bee-Eater, hot in pursuit, alighted at the same spot, and although my foot came down on it ever so lightly— indeed the step was never completed and the grasshopper uninjured —the little bird was killed. I suppose it was so bent on obtaining a meal—perhaps to feed its young—that it failed to realise my presence. As my shikari, who saw everything, remarked :—‘Sahib, you might walk a crore of kos and such an accident not occur again.’ : The Blue-tailed Bee-Eater occurs very rarely in the district— I only found its nest once, in the sandy bank of a stream—and the only other representative of the genus which I came across in these parts was the rare and handsome Blue-bearded Bee+Eater. Essen- tially a forest bird, this species was only met with round the Topchanchi reservoir. I am confident it breeds in the jungle here as it was heard calling every spring and up to the end of August, although it was not until 1935 that the bird was definitely seen and recognised. I was at the time photographing a Dabchick near her nest on a small piece of water between the road encircling the reservoir and the main jungle leading up to Parasnath when the unidentified call reached my ears, and looking through the hide spotted the author perched high up in a simal tree. From time to time it flew to the trunk of a dead tree where it appeared to find food in plenty. The method of calling, and the call itself, are very correctly described in the New Fauna’. The call is a deep hoarse double croak ending in a_ chuckle—kok-kok-keeaou-kek- kek-kek. At the outset it is uttered with the head held low and the long blue feathers of the throat puffed out; with each succeeding 1 Vol. iv, p. 243. | 4 | } ! JouRN. BomBay Nar. Hist. Soc. A MALE PARADISE FLYCATCHER AT NEST. It has not yet acquired the white plumage of the fully adult male. NOTES ON SOME INDIAN BIRDS 531 note the head is raised higher and higher, until finally the bird has the appearance of a crowing cock. . It is a waste of time looking for nests of the different species of Flycatchers that breed here until just before the monsoon breaks, but from about the middle of June all four—the Indian Paradise, the White-spotted Fantail, the Black-naped and Tickell’s Blue Flycatchers—are busy with household duties. The second named, in these hills, as apparently also throughout the hilly regions of the Central Provinces, replaces the White-browed Fantail so commonly found in the plains of northern India. In Manbhum this last is a decidedly rare bird as I only came across it once. The Paradise and the White-spotted Fantail occur in considerable numbers, the latter frequently building its home but three or four feet from the ground, considerably lower than does the White-browed Fantail elsewhere. The Black-naped Flycatcher, a blue bird with black forehead, black top-not, and a crescent marking of similar colour on its breast, although by no means so common as the other species, cannot but be classed as occurring frequently. Tickell’s Blue Flycatcher, with pinky-orange coloured breast, is only less numerous than the Paradise and White-spotted Fantail Flycatchers, but - differs from the other three species in its choice of nesting quarters. The compact little nest, with skeleton leaves frequently serving as basis, is built either in a hole of a bank or more commonly of a stump of a tree or bush. All four species are a joy to watch and their quite pleasing songs may be heard by every intruder of their haunts, although, with the exception of the White-spotted Fantail, all are somewhat shy birds. With the Paradise Flycatcher nesting so generally it was only natural that I should devote particular attention to the breeding plumage of the male bird. The male breeds even in the chestnut phase though mating must be most unusual until after his second moult-when his lovely white plumage is acquired. Only. once -did I come across a male, with a nest, wearing the same plumage as the female. My observations showed too that although the male Paradise Flycatcher shares in the tasks of incubating the eggs and _ feeding the young he apparently takes no part in constructing the nest. This was also found to be the case with the Himalayan sub-species. Blue is a most unsatisfactory colour so far as photography is concerned, and owing to the amount of blue in the plumage of the Black-naped and Tickell’s Blue Flycatchers, one obtains from a print an entirely erroneous idea of the prevailing hue of these two species. Fortunately black, as a rule, is correctly rendered, so that the black markings of the Black-naped Flycatcher show up clearly in photographs. Otherwise there is nothing of particular interest to record with regard to the photography of the different Flycatchers. The fastest plates should be used as their nests are generally found in jungle where, more often than not, lighting conditions are poor; in the case of the Spotted Fantail, the employment of a large stop is usually necessary as the bird is never still for the fraction of a second. 532 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XLI Writing of the Black-naped Flycatcher, I am reminded of an incident which occurred when photographing this species at the nest. The nest was built on a small creeper growing over a nala about eight feet wide, and, after I had finished camera operations, I retired a little distance to observe more clearly the behaviour of the birds when feeding their young. While seated in the nala, a heavy thunder storm came on and for a space of twenty minutes or more it simply poured. Presently I heard an extraordinary sort of roar, the noise becoming louder and approaching nearer every second. I could not make out what it was. It could not have been a train as a hill nearly 2,000 feet high, and three miles of country, intervened between myself and the railway line, and it certainly was not an earthquake nor any animal with which I was familiar. However, my anxiety was soon rested when a freshet bore down on us like a baby tank. Where a few minutes before the nala was as dry as a bone, water three feet deep now hurled itself headlong in its haste to join some larger stream below. Pondering over the phenomenon I thought how terrifying an experi- ence it must be to be caught by a large river in spate, or a tidal bore. Just as when first we went to school the ‘Bloods’ in the xv were (and still are) in our imagination the finest ‘Rugger’ players we ever saw, so too perusal of the three volumes of Hume’s Nests and Eggs even to this day conjures up visions of a wonderful team of ornithologists: Blewitt, Aitken, Brooks (also of the East Indian Railway), Scrope Doig and Major Cock, to mention only a few of Hume’s great correspondents. Sandwiched in amongst these giants of a past era, working quietly and therefore liable to escape notice, but all the time using his weight, like a good forward in the ‘scrum’, we find occasional reference to a Captain Beavan and his discoveries in Manbhum. Was he in the Ramgarh Battalion stationed at Hazaribagh, and did he spend the hot weather on the top of Parasnath? Or was he a ‘Soldier-Political’ administrating the recently subdued district of the Sonthal Parganas? Who or what he was, I have never been able to learn. Memories in the East are but short-lived and I would commend to the Editors of the Journal the necessity for publishing, before the facts are lost in oblivion, a Bibliography or ‘Who’s Who’ of Indian Ornithologists. This dip into the past is occasioned by a glance through the notes detailing my finding and photographing the nests of the Tickell’s and Thick-billed Flowerpeckers and Captain Beavan’s records on their nidification in Nests and Eggs. With regard to the former Hume remarks:—‘The late Captain Beavan, so far as I know, was the first person certainly to take the nest of Tickell’s Flowerpecker’, and from the description of the nest of the Thick- billed Flowerpecker by Captain Beavan one obtains the impression that to him falls the honour of first finding the nest of this species also.!. Whether this was the case or not, both species still occur commonly in the Manbhum district although their nests are amongst Vol. 11, spp.) 2745 u27 7 vane 1.278. NOTES ON SOME INDIAN BIRDS 033 the hardest I know of to discover. Inspite of the statement made by Stuart Baker in the New Fauna where, writing of the nest of Tickell’s Flowerpecker, he remarks :—‘In appearance and construc- tion it is exactly like that of the other Flowerpeckers’,' this is not the case; at all events it is unlike the Thick-billed Flowerpecker’s, the only other Flowerpecker with whose nesting I have acquaint- ance. The nest of Tickell’s Flowerpecker is suspended from a twig and is not unlike that of the Purple Sunbird, minus however the ‘porch’ over the entrance, and without the ‘trailer’ so common to the mest of Leptocoma’ a. asiatica, but that of. the° Thick-billed Flowerpecker is a bag-shaped structure, with the roof slung along the under-side of a twig. The materials employed in the construc- tion of the two nests are also entirely different. Fine grass stems and a cotton-like down go largely to the making of Tickell’s Flowerpecker’s nest, the exterior being covered with cobwebs, cocoons, small species of bark and shavings of rotten wood, where- as the nest of the Thick-billed Flowerpecker is made mainly from the down of the palas flower, with spiders egg-casings worked in between, so that the whole has the appearance of being woven into one piece of felt, reddish-brown in colour. Most nests will be found in March or early April;. numbers are destroyed by the gales prevalent at this time of year. In my experience the Thick-billed Flowerpecker lays but two eggs, of a pinky-white ground colour, with reddish-brown’ spots, while Tickell’s Flowerpecker lays three more usually than two eggs— white and unspotted. Both select the same _ situations for nesting purposes, generally a twig of a mango or seesum tree, the nest being built at any height from ten to twenty-five or more feet from the ground. I too can bear testimony to what has been stated by several observers, that the nest of the Thick-billed Flower- pecker is often situated in the midst of the leaf-nests of that vicious creature, the large red ant; in fact I would go further and say that this is almost invariably the case. The nest at which I photographed Tickell’s Flowerpecker contained three young ones almost ready to fly. This was on 22 April and the little home was clearly feeling the strain of the extra weight, added to which a strong westerly wind rocked it as it willed. The call of the parents as we erected the hide was an excellent imitation of a cricket’s reel, and the alarm note a sharp, piercing utic, utic. Neither bird showed any fear and fed the young every two or three minutes. Nevertheless photographic work was almost out of the question owing to a gale which sprang up and constantly put the nest out of focus, and the very quick movements of the birds themselves. The food given to the young was a small pill, pinkish-red in colour, probably the berry of Loranthus longiflorus, the mistletoe-like plant so generally parasitic on sal and mhowa trees in these parts. Every third time they were fed one of the young always turned round and poked its vent out of the entrance, the parent either BoNolarinih ap. 433" 534 JOURNAL, BOMBAY :NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XLI alighting on the nest to remove the excreta, or hovering with quick- beating wings and flying off with the sack as it was, expelled, | sometimes even helping in its expulsion, helping in the sense that | the sack was seized before it had finally left the vent. I never succeeded in finding a nest of the Quaker Babbler but twice came across the bird on the lower slopes of Parasnath in April. Other babblers occur as residents, and, as soon as the rains | break, many nests of the Spotted Babbler are to be found just | inside the jungle surrounding the Jharia Water Board’s reservoir. | They are always built on gently-sloping ground which, at this season, | is covered with a deep carpet of leaves. The nest itself is a globular | ball of dead leaves, about the size of a fairly large melon, and | usually is scantily lined with the fine stems of the maidenhair fern. | Three eggs form the full clutch. The bird is shy and a great | skulker but has a most attractive call, a clear whistle, wheat-ee-er, | and a loud note, chunk-chunk-chunk, which give away its where- | abouts. Going down hill it is a simple matter to tread on the nest | but if one works the ground in an upward direction the nest is | easily seen owing to the bulge it makes in the general contour, and | because the entrance always looks down hill. I am afraid many | eggs of this species are eaten by snakes which abound in these } parts. Here the Spotted Babbler breeds most commonly at an | elevation of only 950 feet. It is not a difficult bird to photograph, | the only interesting feature about the one I portrayed being that | it was minus the outside toe of the left foot. | Discussion of the Spotted Babbler reminds me of the difficulty | Sakroo and I always had in talking of the different species: he | had no names for most birds and it was useless telling him the a English names. We therefore invented names. The Spotted Babbler came to be known as patti chiriya, the ‘Leaf bird’, in | allusion to its nest. Similarly the Orange-headed Ground-Thrush |} was referred to as chupki, the ‘Silent one’, the Sirkeer as neoru chiriya, from its resemblance to a mongoose when running along o the ground, and so on through the gamut; which is a better method | of each understanding the other than the one my devoted first shikari, Pokhi, tried to adopt. He was with me in Kashmir in | 1931 when we met Lala Sheikh, Mr. B. B. Osmaston’s old shikari. = Lala was well acquainted with the English names of birds and | aired his knowledge at every turn. This was too much for Pokhi | who determined that in future he would always speak of a bird by | its English name. Alas! the first one he tried his hand on, of rather his tongue, was Hume’s Willow-Warbler. I explained who Hume was and he repeated the name a dozen times till he thought he had it pat—but his rendering of it, ‘Hume sahib que Billow-: Bobbler’, brought a smile to my ” face and Pokhi thereafter decided our made- -up names were good enough for him. The Rufous-bellied Babbler is quite as common a breeding species in these parts as the Spotted Babbler, but to. my mind the former’s nest is far more difficult to fad: in its breeding habits too the species is interesting from more than one point of | view. To begin with, the nests are’ of two different types, suRN. BomBay Nar. Hist. Soc. I | } THE SPOTTED BABBLER. The nest is a globular ball of dead leaves. NOTES ON SOME INDIAN BIRDS 539 either an oval ball of dead bamboo leaves lying on its side, with the entrance at the end, or more commonly a ball of coarse grass with the entrance about half way up the side. Whatever the material employed, the nest is usually situated only a few inches from the ground, although I once saw one about four feet up in a bush, and another quite six feet—both unusually high. The nest may be built either among grass and weeds surrounding a small bush on the outskirts of jungle, or a little way in the jungle, but all those I have seen had this common feature, they were always built alongside a path of sorts. Many have no lining but others a slight one of what appears to be hairs but which close inspection reveals to be fine maidenhair fern stems. Then again, the breeding season is prolonged and commences a fortnight or more before that of the Spotted Babbler, and continues till the middle of September, as I see from my notes that both in 1934 and the following year I examined nests containing young on the rath of that month. Four is the largest number of eggs I have seen in a nest. These have a white ground with the slightest shade ot red, with reddish-brown spots and_ blotches. The Rufous-bellied Babbler, like the Spotted Babbler, is a great skulker, but if one remains motionless in its haunts, the bird may be studied at ease. Once I observed a pair, apparently males, fighting. They were seated on a horizontal twig, facing each other. One put its head down, utterred a challenging note, threw its head up and advanced a step towards the other. His opponent went through exactly the same performance, and both repeated it until finally they met, flying at each other—a confused mass of feathers— and eventually separated. This was on 30 June and possibly the birds were disputing territory. .On another occasion I watched a party of quite twelve Rufous-bellied Babblers rummaging under a mass of dead leaves. At times none of them were to be seen, though the leaves showed movement. Had I first come across them feeding in this manner, invisible, it is quite probable I would have imagined the movements of the leaves were caused by a snake and have hit out with my khud stick. The party spirit is most noticeable in this small species which is well termed Rufous- bellied. The male (who is the more brightly coloured) possesses quite a pleasant song of which I wrote in the following terms while listening to it—‘The first half very like a red-winged bush- lark’s, and the latter part resembling the canary-like notes of the sunbird, the two running into each other without a break’. J never came across the Large Grey Babbler in Manbhum. Other babblers which occur in the district are the Jungle, the Common, and Yellow-eyed Babbler, the first and last named being found in considerable numbers but the Common _ Babbler less generally. Of the Yellow-eyed Babbler it. can truthfully be said that there is nothing about the bird which does not at once piease ; the ruddy-chestnut upper plumage, long tail and chaste lower parts, the blood-orange eyelids, its acrobatic ways as it climbs up or down some reed stem, the sweet song, beautiful nest and lovely eggs, all combine to make the Yellow-eyed Babbler a most attractive 536°. JOURNAL, BOMBAY "NATURAE HIST. SOCIET VY, Vol. 2ET bird to meet. A week or so after the monsoon breaks, as soon as the scrub jungle affords better concealment, one can confidently look for its nest and continue to do so till August and even early September. Five eggs are usually laid, pinky-white in ground colour, thickly marked all over with chestnut-red; more rarely they are sparingly but boldly marked with the same colouring. The Green and Blossom-headed Parrakeets commence nesting operations early in the year and their eggs may be found regularly from about the beginning of February till the end of March or even later. The Green Parrakeet usually makes use of a natural hole in a tree for nesting purposes, or one previously occupied by a woodpecker or barbet. It rarely cuts one out itself, whereas the Blossom-headed species almost invariably cuts out its own hole. The former favours holes in mango trees; the latter is partial to the mhowa, its nest hole generally being cut in the large ‘knots’ about the size of a man’s head, which are a feature of this tree. The Large Indian Parrakeet starts to nest even earlier—or is it later?—and its eggs may be found fairly regularly throughout December. The earliest record I have of this species is 20 November when I examined a nest containing three eggs. This is the usual number in a clutch although I have occasionally found four. The Green Parrakeet normally lays four, and the Blossom-headed species commonly five eggs. The Large Alexandrine Parrakeet differs from the others in that it almost invariably nests in natural holes of the red silk cotton tree, and always at great heights from the ground. The word nest is really a misnomer when applied to the Psittaci as the eggs of all of the genus are laid on the bare floor of the hole made or selected, no attempt being made at furnishing. In these paris I never came across a nest in a hole of a building or wall, though elsewhere in northern India such sites are regularly used by Psittacula krameri manillensis. All three species have fallen victims to my camera but there is little in the behaviour of one to distinguish it from the others when at the nest. Both sexes incubate and feed the young, though in the case of the Large Indian Parrakeet these tasks devolve more largely on the female. All feed their. young | by regurgitation, but while P. eupatria nepalensis and P. c. cyanocephala approach the nesting tree quietly and usually at long intervals, the Green Parrakeet seems to feed the young more frequently and often gives notice of its coming. The food given by all three species must I think, usually be the fruit of the wild fig, judging by the visits of the birds to such trees. There can be little doubt that the small berries inside the unripe mhowa flower also form a considerable item on the meénu. What a gorgeous sight the mhowa presents at this season with its fresh green foliage; the deep mauve coloured flowers of the orchid so commonly parasitical on this tree also add greatly to the joy. How over-powering though the smell of the fruit! The small woodpecker common in the Manbhum district is the Yellow-fronted Pied species, mahrattensis. The Golden-backed D WOODPECKER. fy x O << on a) t K Z| Gs Outside its collar-shaped nest hole. THE BLAC Nat. Hist. Soc. JouRN. BOMBA NOTES ON SOME INDIAN BIRDS 537 Woodpecker is decidedly scarce, its place being taken by the Black- backed Woodpecker, a somewhat larger and equally handsome species. This frequents the outer fringes of mixed jungle and is found particularly about the lower slopes of small hills. For a nesting tree the simal is a great favourite, and often the same tree is resorted to year after year, a fresh hole only being cut higher up the trunk and a little to the side of the previous one. This is not circular in form as is usual with the Picidae but somewhat horse-collar shaped. The species is an early breeder and the egg may be found from about ro January onwards, or even earlier, as on the 25th of that month in 1934 a nest I examined contained a young one whose wing feathers were already beginning to grow. Altogether six nests came under my inspection and not in one instance did these contain more than a single egg or young one. The different text books tell us that the Rufous Woodpecker occurs generally in Chota Nagpur. Accordingly I hoped to meet the species in the district and looked forward keenly to studying this very interesting bird at its equally interesting nest, constructed inside the papier-mdché-like blackish-grey nest of a tree ant, with which it seems to live on the most friendly terms. Alas! I never came across either the bird or its nest in Manbhum or elsewhere in the Chota Nagpur division. A number of small ravines, heavily forested, mainly with bamboo growth, run down from the hills to the Topchanchi reservoir on all sides except the north-east, and afford sufh- cient cover for possibly half a dozen pairs of Shamas. I was enthralled when I listened early one morning to the lovely notes of this fine songster. I had never before heard them, and although I felt sure the Shama was the author, my curiosity was not to be satisfied that morning, nor was it until some days later that I actually saw the accomplished artist perform. Now I wanted to find its nest, and, if possible, to photograph the bird at home, though the prospect of doing so seemed hopeless, such a forest and shade-loving species is the Shama. To cut matters short, I wasted two seasons looking in the wrong sort of place for the nest. Whatever the Shama may do elsewhere, in the Manbhum district it builds its nest only in holes of trees or stumps, Moet more’ than five or six feet from the ground, and never, I think, amongst the collection of dead leaves found at the foot of every clump of bamboos. The nest is rather an untidy affair, with a basis (sometimes quite substantial) of dead leaves, and has a lining of fine roots. Here the bird does not begin to nest until after the rains have set in, the earliest (and first) note I. have of a nest being 25 June when I found one containing five fresh eggs. It is more usual to find nests with eggs at the beginning of July. .The breeding season is short and the young have flown by the middle of August at the latest. Five is an unusual clutch and my experience coincides with that stated in Nidification of Birds, that four is the normal number of eggs laid.! These are —— PVOls il; p.. 106; 588 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL Bist SOCIETY, (Vol xii much the same in size as those of the Magpie-Robin, to which, of course, the Shama is closely related. There is also in the colour and markings of the eggs of the two species a close family resemblance, those of the Shama, however, possessing more of a green than a blue ground. Like the Spotted Babbler and the Orange-headed Ground-Thrush, the Shama nests usually at an elevation of only 950 feet. Higher than 1,000 feet I never found its nest. There is no difficulty in photographing the Shama at the nest as it is very confiding, but owing to the very poor lighting con- ditions that invariably exist at the nest, I wasted nearly fifty plates before I obtained a picture that bears reproduction at all. The female is clad in sombre plumage but the male handsomely clothed; nevertheless he is just as difficult to pick up in the jungle as is his mate. The Iora breeds commonly in the scrub jungle proper, and where scattered palas and sal trees occur, the Little Minivet, Large Cuckoo-Shrike, Jerdon’s Chloropsis, the Sirkeer, and Spotted Dove. The Common Pitta occasionally nests in similar country but more usually it breeds in mixed deciduous forest. By making its beautiful nest so generally in low bushes,—often in close proximity to the Yellow-eyed Babbler—the Iora earns the photographer’s everlasting gratitude. Reading through my notes written when photographing the Iora, I am reminded of a matter not generally realised, how young birds quickly succumb from even a comparatively short exposure to the sun’s fierce rays, exactly as they do if deprived of the parent’s warmth and protection when it rains heavily. Although both sexes incubate and feed the young most assiduously, I noticed the female Iora only, during the first five days of their lives, brooding her young for about ten minutes every third time she fed them, her wing's out-stretched, to shield them from our old friend—and enemy too, in the East—Sol. Clearly she was aware of the sun’s danger to the young. I have noticed the same anxiety shown by the Painted Stork, King Crow and a female Chestnut Bittern. The Little Minivet is most partial to the palas tree for nesting purposes. The nest harmonises closely with its surroundings and looks just like a knot in a branch. It would usually escape detection but for the parents flying to and from a particular tree, obviously to feed the young, or taking material to build their charming little home. What a handsome creature is the male with his beautiful grey upper plumage, flame-coloured rump and breast, his long tail and a wing-patch similarly coloured, and _ his bluish-grey chin and throat! The female, with her yellow plumage, and generally paler colouring than her consort’s, is a ‘good-looker’ as well. At one nest neh I ‘worked’, the female always — flew away with the white sack-like excreta x the young held in her bill; the male, on the other hand, almost invariably ate this while still near the nest. JERDON’S CHLOROPSIS (Male). The cobweb covered nest is suspended between the stems of two leaves. NOTES ON SOME INDIAN BIRDS 939 _ Jerdon’s Chloropsis, or the Malabar Green-winged Chloropsis, as Mr. Stuart Baker would now have us call this delightful bird, is exceedingly common in Manbhum, even frequenting gardens in Dhanbad itself, where owing to its powers of mimicry, it frequently deceived me into thinking a shikra had paid me a visit. More usually it is met with in the scrub, and about palas and mhowa trees round hamlets near the jungle. Its cheerful notes take some learning, and owing to its bright green colouring it is not a species which can easily be detected while perched in a tree. Nevertheless, though few colliery managers know Jerdon’s Chlor- opsis by sight, there is not a local savage who is not well acquainted with the haru (green) bulbul, as the bird is usually called. About seven inches in length, the sexes are alike in general colouring, but whereas the male has a purple chin and a streak of the same colour from the eye to the base of the throat, the female has these parts greenish-blue. Like others of its genus, Jerdon’s Chloropsis is entirely arboreal in its habits. _ The nesting season is prolonged. I have found nests containing eggs in March and again in the early part of September, and in every month in between. The nest, a fairly deep cup, is constructed of very fine roots, covered on the outside with cobwebs and vegetable fibres, and suspended hammock-like between the stems of two leaves. It is always placed at the extreme end of a palas bough, and usually at a height of between 20! and 30! from the ground. I must have examined quite forty nests and not in one single instance were they other than as described. Two is the full number of eggs in a clutch. One other representative of this genus is found in Manbhum but is uncommon—the Gold-fronted Chloropsis. In the thicker scrub and mixed jungle of the Dolkata nala leading up to Parasnath, I once came across a nest of this species early in July containing two eggs. One of the noisiest birds I know of—I do not include the _ Jungle Babbler which is in a class by itself—is the Large Indian Cuckoo-Shrike, Always as it utters its loud shrieking call I feel that the bird has been given a sharp and unexpected nip or pinch by some exuberant neighbour! Keeping much to the tops of mhowa and nim trees bordering on cultivated land, and to simal, gharnim and sal trees where the scrub jungle adjoins deciduous forest, this Cuckoo-Shrike continually utters its loud parrakeet- like call. About the size of a dove, this species is mostly grey in colour, darker on the upper than the lower parts, which are almost white, and closely barred about the breast. The nest too is generally built in these same trees, but whereas in the United Provinces the few I found were quite substantial saucer-shaped structures, in Manbhum they were invariably flimsily built affairs, always placed on some horizontal branch where it forked. The nest is decidedly small for the size of the bird, about five inches in width at the outside, and a little over an inch in depth. I have no note of a nest containing more than two eggs or young. The egg is a yellowish-buff in ground colour and is well blotched with 540 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XLI chocolate-brown markings distributed evenly over the surface. The breeding season commences about the third week in March and continues till the middle of July. The photograph of the Large Cuckoo-Shrike rather gives the impression that the young have come to the end of their tether and will soon pass out. In a sense this was the case but was caused, not by prolonged exposure owing to the parents being afraid to return to the nest, but by the young having a surfeit of a mixed caterpillar diet! A charming feature. about this species when courting is the manner in which it lifts and shakes each wing alternately over the back, calling as it does so. From about the beginning of March till the end of September the Indian Oriole occurs commonly throughout the district. It is partial to gardens and mango topes. The Black-headed Oriole, however, which is resident throughout the year and, comparatively speaking, scarce, is far shyer and spends its life in more remote regions, on the forest’s edge and even inside the jungle. Yet, since a bird will always refute you if it can, I have known QO. xanthornus also build its nest in a garden! Both species possess the most delightful liquid calls, as also a horrid rasping note; both build nests identical in every respect, placed between slender | horizontal twigs at the end of a branch, usually between 20! and 30’ from the ground. The Black-headed Oriole however, some- times makes its nest quite low down when this is built in jungle, not more than eight or ten feet from the ground. A description of the nest here is unnecessary as not only is it familiar to most people but elsewhere it has been so well described. The number of eggs in a nest varies from two to three in the case of the Black-headed Oriole and between two and four where Oriolus o. kundoo is concerned, though in Kashmir I once found a nest con- taining five eggs. Neither Oriole is easy to approach with the camera and unless the machan is very gradually built and its construction spread over a period of a week or longer, the chances are the birds will desert the nest. The young, at first, are fed on gnats and other minute insects, and later, on small caterpillars, and in early infancy — are the blondest things imaginable. Thick scrub jungle, interspersed with much palas and sal growth, is a feature of the country side in the hilly parts of the Manbhum district. Here it 1s that the Sirkeer-Cuckoo is often. enough to be found, though few people I know were aware of the bird’s occurrence until they had spent a day with me shooting Jungle-Fowl. More than once, when the beat was over, I was asked ‘What was the brown-looking bird with a long tail and red and yellow bill which came out a few minutes ago, perched on a sal, and then sneaked off?’ I am sure my interrogator’s credulity was taxed to the utmost when I told him it is a species of cuckoo and that it builds a nest instead of laying its eggs in the nests of other birds, as is the case with the ‘Harbinger of Spring’ at home, and my béte noir out here, the Koel. ouRN. Bompay Nar. Hist. Soc. A LARGE INDIAN CUCKOO SHRIKE A surfeit of caterpillars explains the grievous depression of the chicks. NOTES ON SOME INDIAN BIRDS 541 In spite of the Sirkeer occurring fairly commonly I have found few nests myself, though I have seen many others, thanks to the agency of Sakroo. Nearly all those I have examined were built in the uppermost branches of pollarded palas and sal trees, where the dense foilage made detection difficut. The nest is a fairly substantial platform of twigs, with a lining of green leaves, usually of the tree in which the nest is built. The eggs, which are two or three in number, are pure white when first laid and average 1.40 inches in length by 1.05 inches in breadth. In the Manbhum district the breeding season extends from the end of April till the end of September, on the 29th of which month I have seen a nest containing three well incubated eggs. I have tried very hard to photograph the Sirkeer at the nest but have never come anywhere near success, and in view of my experiences have long since abandoned all efforts in this direction. The bird will at once desert if the nest contains eggs. I regret to say such has also been the case when there have been young, this in spite of my having superintended personally the erection of the machan and being satisfied that more than ordinary pre- cautions were taken not to disturb the birds. The Sirkeer is normally very silent, but, when alarmed, utters a guttural kRhokh-khokh, quickly repeated. As long ago as 1862, Jerdon either stated the Large Himalayan Green-billed Malkoha occurs or breeds in Chota Nagpur and the Northen Circars, or he thought it did—I am not sure which, as my copy of ‘Jerdon’ was lent a few years ago to a friend who failed to return it. But no ornithologist since appears to have met with this species in these parts, judging by what Blanford’s Fauna, the New Fauna and Nidification of Birds have to say in the matter. The first named quotes Jerdon in support of the Large Green-billed Malkoha occurring in Chota Nagpur, but adds :—‘This needs confirmation’,? while in the New Fauna Mr. Stuart Baker observes —‘possibly Chota Napgur and Northern Circars (Jerdon)’,? a statement which is repeated in Nidification of Birds, the relevant volume of which was published in 1934.* It would therefore appear that in spite of the passage of seventy-seven years Jerdon’s remarks still await confirmation today (1939). ( Jerdon was, however, quite COIrect. It is surprising that the species has not been noted from Chota Nagpur in recent years, as it is not only fairly common (for an unusual bird) in Manbhum, in the heavy mixed forest round the Topchanchi reservoir and the Dolkata nala, but is found in the neighbouring district of Hazaribagh. It is, however, a particularly shy species and frequents forests the European seldom invades, which fact probably accounts for it having remained unnoticed so long. . the. “circumference of his -tight forefoot 1n death was 62”. In my opinion he stood about 1o/-5” in height (vertical) at the shoulders; and this measurement was confirmed by his rubbing marks on various trees. His tushes were both broken off short at the gum, but for a makhna were still excep- tionally long and_ thick. When his carcase was seen by the Mahouts engaged in Mela-Shikar, they said that he was the biggest elephant seen in these parts for years; and was known as a notorious crop raider, who occasionally chased people about, but he was not a man-killer; and had been living solitary for many years. They estimated his age as between 80 and too! The ears were very ragged and showed a great amount of turn- over. The bulk of the body was enormous. In a couple of days no one could go within a mile of the place due to the terrible stench. ) ; The next few days were devoted to observing wild elephants and their ways, whilst scouts were sent out to hunt up the recent tracks of the other solitary elephant,—the Rogue. One morning 568 . JOURNAL, “BOMBAY NATURAL AIST. SOCIETY, Viol nue! as we were on our way to a salt lick, situated in a narrow valley where we hoped to see elephant and with luck Mithun, we heard a herd approaching in the opposite direction. We rushed a littie way uphill and sat tight and were soon rewarded by seeing 8 cows and 3 calves walking along in Indian file, not more than 50 yards distant. The moment the leading cow crossed our tracks, she stooped dead and tested the wind, in no time her trunk swung in our direction and every other elephant followed suit including the tiny calves. Right about wheel, canter, seemed to be next orders and they shuffled away uphill as fast as they could go with a tremendous crashing. The whole movement was executed as if on a parade ground and we all had a good laugh at the gravity of the little fellows. Another afternoon, Kuttru, the valiant, led me right up to two young tuskers, that had temporarily left a herd. The larger of the two was about 8/ 6” in height with light tusks, Khuttru’ called him a Khuru-Dantal the other was not above 6/-o”, with tiny tusks just protruding from his jaw. The blood-thirsty tracker wanted me to shoot both. I got to within 5 yards of them and climbed a tree to get some snap- shots. ‘It was delightful to see how they caressed each other with their trunks and how the smaller copied every movement of his elder brother, even to rubbing his forehead on the same tree. Eventually Balbahadur, who originally had lagged behind, came blundering on the scene, upon which the elephants rushed off down- hill. They just bounded down like dirty black rubber balls, the smaller of the two coming an awful cropper over a log in the grass. He looked such a clown with his head on the ground anc his hind legs stubbing the grass, that I sat and roared, sending off the herd that was in the valley crashing away at a great pace. One day when following up a solitary ganesh or single-tusked elephant we ran slap bang into a herd, which he had suddenly joined up with. The place was a sort of natural ampitheatre, a flat, tree covered hollow, surrounded by high bamboo covered hills, with steep sides. The herd was right around us, split up into what appeared to be family groups, all resting under the shade of the trees. The two nearest groups were all cows and calves, then a solitary makhna, not however anythin as large as the one I had shot. Not far from him and close to a group, headed by an immense old cow, stood the ‘ganesh’. Unlucky brute for me, had I caught him up when solitary, I was justified in shooting him, as he was a known crop-raider; but within the shelter of a herd he was in sanctuary and inviolate. His one tusk was every bit of 65 lbs. if not more, as thick as my thigh and projecting 4 feet from his jaw, stained the colour of nicotine, with the point rounded and blunt. Out of his head, it would have gone to 6/-o” in length. Balbahadur, as usual, got us all into trouble. Close to where he crouched, about 15 yards to my left, was a pinky-grey calf; the little chap could not have been more than a few weeks old, he was trying to pull down a creeper with his tiny trunk. Balbahadur spotted this progidy and crept to within a WILD ELEPHANTS IN ASSAM 569 yard of it. He had a shawl in his hands and seemed to be trying to tie its hind legs together, in an effort to capture it. At this moment the old cow spotted him and with an unearthiy scream charged headlong at him. Pandemonium is the wrong word to describe the next few moments. The entire herd consisting of some 40 animals, rushed over everything screaming, bamboo clumps were scattered, the individual stems cracking like rifle shots. The whole place was like an inferno, only, instead of comparatively benign devils, there were dozens of infuriated and frightened elephants. I hardly know what happened to the rest, I saw Kuttru and the Garo shin up the hillside and Balbahadur dodge behind a bamboo clump. I ran across to him and was nearly run over by a couple of runaway cows. The mukhna was screaming Just the other side of our clump, so we faded silently away up the opposite hillside to Kuttru and the rest. The ganesh had dis- appeared, and by the time we had rejoined forces, the herd who were still in possession of the arena, started filing away. We counted 33 animals, but others had already made good their escape. Later on we heard from the Mahouts that they had captured 2 young elephants from that herd a few days previously, one of them being a young tusker whose dam was the old and vicious cow. She and the makhna had then turned on the Roonkees, or catch- ing elephants, and severely pummeled a valuable female, whilst the rest showed such a pugnacious disposition, that they had de- cided to leave this herd alone. One of the Mahaldars offered me Rs. 500 to catch the calf we had seen, as it was supposed to be an albino and very valuable. He also offered to lend two koon- kees and his Mahouts, phandees or noosers, and pay all expenses. His Mahouts were however a miserable opium eating lot; and he a great sharper, so that nothing came of his proposal. On the other hand, some Gurkha Mahouts and phandees in the service of another Mahaldar, were a desperate gang. I did one hunt with this lot, as a paying guest; and they did show sport. Having closed up to a herd, away they rushed in, cutting out two half- grown young with their koonkees. There were two of us in this particular case, and we followed that calf through swamp and bamboo, along the valley. My companion koonkee did the actual noosing, as she was a leggy and fast female. My mount being a much slower makhna who however came up in time to help in the final roping and tie-up. I finished that little jaunt more dead than alive with not a square inch of skin on the inside of my legs. You must know that these koonkees are not fitted with pads, only ropes, and one has to hang on with hands, teeth and toes; but falls to rival those experienced in pig-sticking are fre- quent. I paid the promised ‘bakshish’ to my Mahout and was thankful to get off his elephant alive, and with no bones broken; any more sport of this description would have meant a lengthy stay in hospital for me. I may add that my part in the hunt was to beat my mount with a thick stick over the rumps, to make him move faster, as I had displaced the charkatta; only two being carried per Koonkee in this Mela-Shikar. You may guess that 570 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XLI I did nothing of the sort being too busy hanging on for dear life. Whilst our pair of Roonkees were successful, another lot had a fearful time, one of the phandees being swept off his mount by a trailing creeper, his Roonkee was useless for further catching; the other had to cut loose the calf they had noosed, as he was too big for their mount—a very light female, and besides dragg- ing her along, very nearly choked himself in the noose as a result. Altogether a very successful hunt; and the Mahouts considered me very lucky and wanted to take me out again, but one experience sufficed. However all good things end, and I returned to Chakardah on my way home. On my very last night in the jungles, the Rogue, who had protected his hide so well that we never once caught a glimpse of him in spite of continual hunting, staged a grand Finale; which ended in his enriching me with his beauti- ful symmetrical tusks. I had finished packing my kit and rifles, and after a hot bath, the first for many days, had turned in amidst the unwonted luxury of warm blankets, clean sheets, and silk pyjamas. I was asleep almost before my head touched the pillow, and was in the middle of a vivid dream, wherein a monster elephant with long curly tusks, absolutely impervious to all bullets was chasing me; when a fearful scream from an_ elephant made me wide awake. Balbahadur rushed to my hut from his own, and shouted elephant; meanwhile the screaming and noise went on, added to which were loud shouts and wails from the village where the Mahaldars had picketed their koonkees. I developed some latent energy that I consider is unexampled. With- in half a minute I was rushing to the scene of tumult in my pyjamas and slippers, with the heavy rifle in my hands and the last 7 cartridges I possessed. To get there I had to wade through an arm of the swamp and cross some 4oo yards of flooded paddy fields. In the process, I lost my slippers, lost my bearings and landed up to the armpits in a bog. Some of the Mahouts with a lantern, rapidly came on the scene and extricated me. Whilst rushing me along to their lines they gasped out their story. This summed up was to the effect that during the day a solitary bull dantal or tusker had been seen following one of their Roonkees— a makhna. This latter had been showing signs of ‘musth’ and as a result had been securely chained up that evening. Towards nightfall he started showing signs of great restlessness. About midnight, an elephant trumpeted in the jungle nearby, to which the makhna answered and about a quarter of an hour later, when they were all asleep, the wild tusker crossing through the out- lying part of the village, came into their lines. The first intima- tion they had of his presence was when he attacked the tame makhna. The screams of the latter awoke them in a fright, whea they noticed that he was bleeding from a wound near the shoulder, inflicted by the Rogue. In spite of their shouts and the waving of lighted fire-brands, the Rogue, who had backed away at their first approach, again charged the unfortunate makhna, driving one of his tusks into the base of the latter’s trunk. Eventually the tusker knocked down the makhna, not a difficult task as the WILD ELEPHANTS IN ASSAM Sea latter’s fore-legs were shackled by chains. By this time the entire village was in the utmost confusion, men, women, and children, ran about screaming that their last day had come. The makhna continued his terrible screams as the wild tusker pummelled and kicked him. The moment I arrived was very nearly my last; in pitch blackness, under a steady drizzle of rain, a horde of frantic men, women and children laid hold of me. At this moment a Mahout came running up with a firebrand and the tusker who previously had not been visible under the shade of the trees, stepped forward into the circle of light about 50 yards away. In the mad stampede that immediately ensued, I was swept into a ditch by the solid wave of humanity that rushed back; with fists, legs and gun-stock I had to fight my way clear otherwise I would have been suffocated. As this ditch was practically an offal pit for a nearby cattle pen, my odoriferous condition can be better imagined than described. Eventually, with myself standing guard over the tusker, Balbahadur, my orderly and the Mahouts, drove the panic- stricken villagers into the comparative safety of the cattle-pen, thereby clearing (the field for action. Supported by Balbahadur flashing the electric torch onto the tusker’s head and carrying my second rifle, we started the attack. The tusker fronted us and came on; when he was about to yards away I let drive into the spot where I judged the bump of his fore- head was placed. He swayed to the shot and recoiled backwards, then recovering himself rushed us without a sound; Balbahadur dragged me back into a Lantana bush. As the elephant passed I fired for his ear, but hit him in the centre of his neck, as by this time I was firing in the dark; the blasted torch having dropped in the confusion. He screamed loudly to the shot, and appeared to be half paralysed, as he started moving in a blind sort of a way, very Slowly, uphill. 1 ran alongside in the thick Lantana, and fired three times at his head, trying to brain him, but in the dark could not get the correct spot. Fumbling in my pocket I discovered that I had only one cartridge left, one having dropped out in the confusion at the ditch. The elephant was now standing in a dense clump of Lantana, so I ran right up to him and fired into his ear from about three yards. He dropped like a stone without a sound, just missing crushing me; as he had been on _ higher ground than myself. I literally escaped by inches. As it was I fled after taking the shot, as by this time my nerves were in shreds. The first to come up to me with a smoke was Balbahadur, who had been close behind; and I stopped to recover as much of my courage as I could. The rest of the crowd soon followed, and we jauntily announced the death of the Rogue. A ‘stripped to the skin bath’ followed at the elephant lines, and I put on some clean clothes, but was much too excited to sleep immediately. We sat up with the Mahouts gossiping and yarning, drinking copiously of tea laced with whiskey. They were fullsome with their praises, stating that they had never met any Saheb before, brave enough to shoot a goonda-dantal by night. I did not edify them, by say- ing that in actual truth, funk had dried up my throat to such an 572. JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Volz X21 extent that I was left with a raging and apparently insatiable thirst. Next morning after cutting out the tusks, I decided that as the carcase was within a hundred yards of the nearest huts, it was absolutely necessary to bury it, to prevent an epidemic when it rotted. The villagers absolutely refused to do this, in spite of my offering whatever wages they demanded. They said that it was too much labour and in any case the carcase would soon rot. Luckily the Forest Ranger came that morning, and he soon impressed some Garos and Cacharees who did the job. It was terribly tedious; whilst the coolies dug an immense pit, I had to cut up the carcase with Balbahadur. We were at it till 4 p.m. The above incident is typical of the attitude of Assamese Mikiri villagers. They just will not do any manual labour uncon- nected with their daily lives, whether paid for or not. To the men who had sweated all day, I paid the agreed amount of Rs. 25/- plus as much country-grog as they wanted, and they were very contented. They fully deserved every pice of that money. Late that evening the Ranger boated me back across the swamp up to the main road, where I soon caught a bus back to Gauhati. I will not weary the reader with instructions how and where to shoot wild elephants ; suffice to say that by Assam Government ruling the rifle must be a H. V. one of not less than 4oo bore. He will learn everything there is to know from Sanderson’s book. In Assam he must be prepared to travel light and foot-slog for miles. Carriage is very difficult to obtain and the use of tame elephants, unless he has local friends impossible. Tea laced with whiskey, following 5 grains of some quinine compound, twice a day is the best fever-preventive. Shooting rules in Assam are very strict, and Fees and Royalties ditto. This is excellent as, at least in the Forest Reserves, it prevents indiscriminate slaughter, as was the case in years gone by. I have no actual experience, bar Elephant shooting, of the Forest Reserves; an omission that I intend to rectify no sooner funds permit. J should think that in some of these Reserves the shooting, though terribly difficult, will compare with anything the rest of India can produce. ? Measurements. Makhna Bull Elephant. Vertical height 10/-2” but actually estimated at 1o/-5”; Circumference of right forefoot, in death, 62”. Tushes 226 tolas the pair. Rogue Tusker: vertical height, o/-7”, gircumference of right forefoot, in death, 4/-83" Tusks, ‘Right. 3!-11/ X13" girth at the. gum); Weight 34 ( \ Oveprg \ P & % may. aaueye peledneh en \ emAnyyewe | X \ \ ) zHLs s ( Vv _~ BZD NPAC T eee et nee s SJIINW b&b 4 JivoOS S4LVLS INN YY ONAVL LVN aNnoOY AYLNNOD JO dV "00S ‘LISI{ ‘IVN Avawog ‘Nuno f NOTES ON THE BIRDS OF NATTAUNG, KARENNI. BY Messrs. H. C. SMITH, M.B.0.U., P. F. GARTHWAITE, AND B. E. Smytures, Burma Forest Service. With Systematic Notes by Draco. WFICEHURSE, M.A.y MéeR.C.S., MiB. OLU- (With a map). Description of the locality.—Nattaung (8,607 feet) is the highest point in Southern Burma on the Sittang-Salween divide. The boundaries of Toungoo District, Thaton District and Karenni meet on the summit (Lat. 18° 49! North, Long. 19° 02/ East). The annual rainfall is not less than 110 inches, probably considerably more. Below 5,000 feet shifting cultivation has been so extensive that the whole area consists of secondary growth of various ages and density, with pine, oaks and chestnuts predominating, and virgin forest is confined to a few precipitous gorges unsuitable for culti- vation. Above 5,000 feet very little cultivation has been done, and virgin forest covers the area. In what follows the nomenclature adopted is that used by Champion in ‘A preliminary survey of the forest types of India and Burma’, Indian Forest Records, Volume I, Number 1 (to which a reference is invited). Four climax types and two serai types occur on Nattaung. 1. (Group 1a C2) Eastern tropical evergreen = Evergreen. This type occupies steep north facing slopes from 5,000 to 8,o00 feet, and also occurs in moist pockets and along the streams in the other types. The following is an extract from Champion’s description: ‘Lofty, dense, evergreen forests 150 feet or more high. ... the canopy is extremely dense ... epiphytes are numerous. . . ground vegetation in typical cases may be almost absent, elsewhere a carpet of Strobilanthes or Selaginella and ferns may occur; grasses are absent . . .Erect bamboos are unusual but may occur locally’. 1a (E 9) Southern wet bamboo brakes= Bamboo brake. This type occurs here and there in the preceding type. ‘Bamboo brakes are usually found along streams or on badly drained hollows more or less displacing the tree forest . .. the brakes are often very dense, even if the bamboos grow in clumps’. 078 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XLI 2. (Group 7b C3) Burma Sub-Tropical Hill Forest =Oak forest. This type is a buffer between the pine forest and the evergreen ; it grades into temperate forest (see below) at about 6,000 feet. ‘Hill forest of good height and density, the dominant species be~- ing mostly evergreen though some large briefly deciduous trees occur. The total canopy density is much less dense than in the tropical evergreen and the large trees rarely stand close together. A shrubby undergrowth is always present and grass is absent. Bamboo may be present or not. The type is characterised by the prevalence of oaks and chestnuts, Quercus and Castanopsis.’ 3. (Group 8 C2) Assam-Burma Pine Forest=Pine Forest. This type occurs on south and east facing slopes from 4,500 to 8,o00 feet, and covers large areas but is restricted to well drained soil. “Typically a practically pure association of pine (Pinus khasya) but very generally considerably influenced by the annual or periodic fires which take place. Typically no other trees occur in the top canopy, there is practically no underwood, and even shrubs are few, but where moisture conditions are a little more favourable there tends to be an underwood of Quercus and other broad-leaved trees. These trees, mostly evergreen species, increase with rising altitude leaving the pine on the warmer, drier ridges and as scattered standards. A grassy soil cover is usual . climbers and bamboos are absent’. 7 3a. (25/2) Burma subtropical hill savannah=Savannah. ‘Grassy downs with scattered clumps or single trees usually pine and oaks’. This type only occurs as a small area of a few acres on the top of Sosiko. 4. (Group rob Cz) Assam-Burma wet temperate forest =Temperate forest. The higher slopes of Nattaung, above about 6,coo feet are covered by this type, with a few outliers of pine forest and ever- green; it is like a dwarf form of oak forest with which it inter- grades, and is distinguished by low rounded crowns and _ short boles, dense bamboo undergrowth (Arundinaria elegans Kurz), and alpine elements in the flora. ‘Closed evergreen high forest of trees of large girth but medium height, rarely over 80 feet, and usually with large branching crowns festooned with mosses and larger epiphytes .. At the high elevations a dwarf bamboo under- growth is very generally developed and may be very dense and uniform over large areas’. Oak and chestnuts are prevalent; Rhododendron occurs in the pine forest outliers over 7,000 feet. The period spent on Nattaung was from April 8th to April 16th. The locality was reached by lorry from Toungoo in eight hours by the road recently opened by the Mawchi Mines Company. The first camp was at mile 82, ten miles over the Karenni boundary at NOTES ON THE BIRDS OF NATTAUNG, KARENNI 579 about 5,000 feet; from here the lower slopes were worked and a general survey of the locality made. After three days a move was made with cooly transport over a thousand foot ridge to a camp on the Lesi chaung, at about 5,000 feet, from which the summit (8,607 feet) could be reached in about three hours steady climb- ing. From this camp also Sosiko (7,571 feet) was visited, a climb of seven hours along the eastern watershed of the Kolo chaung. Possible camping sites nearer the main ridge were noted, from which the higher elevations could be worked with greate ease. The time spent on the mountain was short, and new records were still being obtained on the last day, so that the birds recorded below can only be an incomplete list of the avifauna. Dr. C. B. Ticehurst, to whom we are greatly indebted, has identified all the skins, and his systematic notes and remarks appear in square brackets at the end of each form. {The first collection to be made in Karenni was in 1861 when Major Lloyd travelled through the country. His birds were said to have gone to the East India Company’s Museum in Calcutta and SO,far as, we know have never been reported on. In- 1874 Wardlaw-Ramsay accompanied Major Lloyd on an expedition to the capital of Karenni, Kyai-pho-gyee (Kyebogyi). The expedi- tion entered the Karen Hills from Toungoo on March 5, and after a halt at the capital for a week and a visit to the Shan frontier it started to return on March 30, crossing he Karen Hills 50 miles north of the outward journey and reached Toungoo on April to. The highest elevation reached on this trip was 6,o00 feet. The collection of 400-500 birds of about 150 species is in the British Museum. Ramsay wrote a short account of the trip (Ibis 1875, pp. 348-353) but the exact itinerary and a full list of birds was never published. a cee pie Sa Patek : Sieh Kise Weak tea a Lhreiiaes Both specimens obtained on the same open pine ridge at about 6,500 feet. They keep to the tops of trees and utter a loud monotonous ‘piou-piou-piou- y PlOUl 0. 2.4 hepedteds Om Omi2 = times: Pteruthius erythropterus aerulatus. te Found chiefly in oak and pine forest between 5,000 feet and 6,000 feet, but a specimen was also obtained in temperate forest at 8,o00 feet. The cali of this bird as it works through the tops of pines or oaks is one of the dis- tinctive noises on Nattaung. The call is a loud and mellow ‘cha-chew, cha- chew’. One specimen was obtained as it was hopping sideways along the branches of an oak uttering a different call, tri-syllabic in an ascending scale, the first syllable longer than the others. Males appear to predominate in the population, perhaps because they are easier to see. [These are nearer aerulatus than to yunnanensis. | Mesia argentauris. Phe Ne ‘Common in regrowth about 5,000 feet. Often associated with parties of Ilcippe. They utter a chattering note. : NOTES (ON THE BIRDS.OF NATTAUNG,. KARENN] 585 Minla ignotincta. Bao le oon 2) unsexed. Two obtained above 6,000 feet, both in open pine forest and also in tem- perate forest. Not a shy bird. Keeps to the crowns of trees going about in small parties. [The occurrence of this bird in Karenni is a large extension to its known range; the nearest known places where it occurs in Burma are Mt. Victoria in the Chin Hills and the hills east of Bhamo. ] Microscelis psaroides concolor. eo Ohs Fairly common in pine forests about 5,000 feet. A bird of the tree-tops. Ixos maciellandi tickelli. Gi 3. Te) Q Common in evergreen between 5,500 and 7,000 feet, and also in pine and oak forest near secondary growth. [The distributions of tickelli, binghanu, and similis in eastern Burma require much further study and further collecting is essential. ] Alcurus striatus. 3 63 1 unsexed. Found in both pine and evergreen above 6,000 feet. Has a number ol calls; one bird was shot making a tri-syllabic call with a drop in the middle-— “whee-too-wheet’. Keeps much to the tops of tal! trees. [Known from the Karen Hills and Southern Shan States but not hitherto from Karenni. | Molpastes chrysorrhoides klossi. I unsexed. Only one pair seen, in shrubs on pine ridge at 5,000 feet. {I keep this form as a race of chrysorrhoides for the time being; the relation- ships of klossi, nigropileus and burmanicus and their distributions require a great deal of further careful collecting. In some localities two of these forms appear to live side by side, but from all localities in the hills material is utterly inadequate; chrysorrhoides is a Chinese form and does not occur ia Burma so far as we know. | Xanthixus flavescens vividus. 2 63; 1 unsexed. The common Bulbul of the: re-growth and forests below 5,000 feet. Many young birds on the wing were seen. Pycnonotus jocosus (Linn.). Common in re-growth and low forest up to 5,000 feet. Pycnonotus flaviventris flaviventris. I unsexed. The only bird seen, shot in re-growth at 4,500 feet, which must be near the upper limits of this species. Certhia discolor shaneusis. Doce 2, Os 1 unsexed: Commonly seen both in the pine forests and also in evergreen from 5,000 feet upwards, but most often in the pines. The note is a shrill loud ‘duwee-teet’. It is not a shy bird and appears so absorbed in its hunt for insects in the bark that it allows a close approach. Pnoepyga pusiila pusilla. I ; The only specimen seen. Was obtained in the undergrowth in evergreen near a stream at 6,000 feet, 586- JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XLI - Tesia cyaniventer. ry 2%. ; Obtained in the same place as Pnoepyga at 6,000 feet. It was uttering its characteristic shrill ‘chirrup’ which betrayed its presence. [Recorded from Karen Hills and Mt. Byingyi but not before from Karenni. This specimen belongs to the form olivea.] Brachypteryx cruralis. 3 65 1 unsexed. All the specimens were obtained in evergreen undergrowth at about 7,000 feet. No females of this species were seen, though 2 of the males shot were together. Brachypteryx nipalensis nipalensis. 2 9; 1 unsexed. ape) Two specimens. obtained in thick evergreen undergrowth near a stream at 5,500 feet and one in grasses in re-growth at 5,000 feet. No males seen. [Hitherto Kalaw is the only locality where this species has been obtained between Bhamo in the north and Tenasserim in the south. I have already given reasons for uniting Heteroxenicus with Brachypteryx (Ibis. 1939, p. 349).] Saxicola caprata burmanica. Pairs seen along the road in re-growth at about 5,000 feet. No specimens obtained. Rhodcphila ferrea ferrea. Cy Ole Common in the open pine forests up to 7,000 feet. Henicurus schistaceus. 1-0. : Shot in a stream at 5,o0o0 feet in pine forest and found where the streams flow through rather open country, as opposed to evergreen. [Though known from the Karen Hills this has not been recorded before from Karenni. ] Henicurus leschenaulti indicus. DAG These birds take the place of the Slaty-backed Forktail in the higher reaches of the streams above 6,000 feet where they run through evergreen. . [This also has not been obtained actually in Karenni before,. though it has been in the neighbouring states. } Chaimarrornis leucocephalus. ; Birds seen in rocky streams at about 5,000 feet in several places. Un- doubtedly breeds here. Two birds seen together at a big waterfall on the Mawchi road at 5,000 feet. [A slight extension of range southwards from the Southern Shan States where it occurs. ] Calliope calliope. A male seen in thick re-growth at about 4,500 feet. Turdus obscurus obscurus. Tee. ; Specimen obtained out of a party of 15 to 20 birds feeding on ground in open oak forest at 6,000 feet. Also seen in evergreen. When approached ail the birds flew swiftly up into the tops of the nearby trees with thin Pipit-lile calls of ‘zip-zip’. In habits this thrush resembles the Redwings and Field- fares rather than the Gorund-Thrushes. [I have already dealt with the question of subobscurus which Salvadori described from the Karen Hills (Ibis. 1935, p. 255). Wardlaw Ramsay ob- tained feae in Karenni and probably this and obscurus occur together in mixed flocks as winter visitors. ] el NOTES ON THE BIRDS OF NATTA UNG, KARENNI 587 Oreocincia dauma dauma. oc: Obtained in oak forest at 6,000 feet, the only bird seen. It was working through the shrubs and lower branches ro to 15 feet from the ground. The white wing bar is a good field character. [Has been recorded in the Karen Hills. ] Zoothera marginata. ies Oke Flew up into a sapling from the bed of a stream in which it was ‘ : apparently feeding in evergreen at 5,000 feet. The only bird of its kind seen. Monticola rufiventris. A male bird seen, but not collected, in pine forest at 5,000 feet. Sat very erect and still on a dead branch high up in the crown of a tree. Observed clearly through the glasses for nearly half an hour. Mycphoneus eugeni. it OS Seen in several of the rocky streams in oak forest at 5.000 feet. Hemichelidon sibirica fuliginosa. Boe : | Shot just below the top of Nattaung at 8,500 feet in dwarf bamboo. Not uncommon in pine and oak forest at 5,000 feet. Partial to dead trees stand- ing in clearings from which it hunts. [Has been obtained in the Karen Hills as late as 26 Apel: =a hes status is uncertain. | Hemichelidon ferruginea. Lo. 3 G50 1. unsexed. A very common Flycatcher along the streams in evergreen between 5,000 fet and 7,000 feet, and also found in more open country. [Has been obtained in Southern Shan States and Tenasserim, but not hitherto in Karenni. Here again the status is uncertain as to whether it is a winter visitor or resident. ] Muscicapula hodgsoni. ee see unsexed: Found commonly in all types of forest between 5,000 feet and 8,000 feet. The male has a few (2 to 6) white feathers behind the eve on the sides of the crown. Muscicapuia hyperythra hyperythra. La earcee Bao) : Obtained near stream in evergreen about 6,000 feet and in temperate forest at 8,000 feet. [The nearest locality to Karenni that this bird has been obtained is the Southern Shan States. Status uncertain. | Muscicapula melanoleuca melanoleuca. BiG.) 30.0.5) 12 juvenile. Common in open oak and pine forest between 5,coo and 6,000 feet. The note is a thin high ‘Pi-pi-pi-pi’ followed by a low rattle ‘churr-r-r-r-r-’ or ‘Pi-churr-pi-pi-pi-pi’. Musicapula Sapphira. areas In open pine forest at 5,000 feet. Another male was seen in thick re- growth at 5,000 feet. [Does not appear to be common anywhere. It has been obtained in the Southern Shan States once or twice. | 088. JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL (EUS TSO CUE ILY, = VolmaeweL Eumyias thalassina thalassina. Seen on several occasions in re-growth at about 5,000 feet. Culicicapa ceylonensis calochrysea. Seen on numerous occasions up to 6,000 feet in all types of forest. Niltava grandis grandis. Sion ipemncc Seen and heard in many places up to 7,000 feet. It keeps to evergreen, particularly near streams and works the lower storey 10 feet to 50 feet from the ground. The note is most characteristic, a loud whistle of 3 notes on an ascending scale in a minor key. [Not previously recorded from Karenni, though it occurs as near as Mt. Byingyi in Loi Long State. ] Niltava macgrigoriae. Oe Collected on stream bank on edge of hill cultivation in pine forest at 5,000 feet. Chelidorhynx hypoxanthum. rage s Ow iminsexed: Seen on several occasions in evergreen glades near streams at about 6,000 feet. It allows a close approach and flits about the branches, flirting out its tail like a Fantail Flycatcher. Two of the specimens were collected in temperate forest at 8,o00 feet while courting. [Recorded from the ‘Toungoo Hills’ by which probably was meant the Karen Hills near Thandaung. ] Rhisidura aibicollis. I juvenile. Several pairs seen at about 5,000 feet, and occasionally found up to 7,000 feet. It has a thin high-pitched whistle of 7 or 8 notes up and down the scale. Lanius colluroides colluroides. iL ee Collected in pine forest at 4,500 feet, the only one seen. Lanius nasutus tricolor. HOw alo : Shot in re-growth at 4,500 feet where several birds were seen. [The range of this species is still little known. It breeds at Kalaw and probably it breeds in Karenni, whence it has not been recorded before, though it has been taken in the Karen Hills in April. ] Tephrodornis gularis pelvicus. Gas Obtained in pine forest at 5,000 feet. [Known from the Karen Hills but not hitherto from Karenni. This single bird with wing 123 mm. is as large as any Burmese or Sikkim examples. | Pericrocetus speciosus elegans. | Se aie Seen once or twice at about 5,000 feet. [This specimen is in the curious orange-red plumage sometimes found in Minivets. It is sexed as a male. ] Pericrocotus brevirostris. seg asc ae ye Minivet of Nattaung, being found all over the open forest be- tween 5,000 and 6,000 feet. [Males from Karenni measure wing 85-89:-5 and are therefore somewhat intermediate between affinis (87-93 mm.) and neglectus (81-86 mm). | 2% ere NOES IONS BAphke DS Ol) NATIAUNG, KAREN NI 589 Pericrocotus solaris. Q. 3 Collected in pine forest at 5,000 feet, the only birds of this race seen for certain. [These appear to be very worn solaris though I cannot match them with any other specimens. At the same time rippont does not appear to me to be a recognizable race as none of the specimens from the Southern Shan States either accord with the description or differ from solaris. ] Graucalus macei siamensis. Common in the pine and oak forests, about 5,000 feet. - Artamus fuscus. it” webs Common up to 6,o00 feet particularly on top of pine ridges. [The ecology of this bird, which appears to have some relationship ta palms, needs more careful working out. It is local and capricious for which there must be some cause. It is said to feed on butterflies, including ‘noxious’ ones; why, then, the massive bill? Recorded from Southern Shan States but not from Karenni. | Chaptia aenea aenca. TQ: Occasionally seen in valleys about 5,000 feet. Not seen on higher ridges, Bhringa remifer tectirostris. Seen on several occasions near the clearings for cultivation between 4,500 and 5,500 feet. [Has been recorded from the surrounding districts but not from Karenni. | Tribura sp? A bird making a ‘tschik-tschik’ note was heard in savannah on_ Sosiko at 7,000 feet, but refused to show itself. Franklinia gracilis Hlodgsonii. if oie Seen in re-growth and grasses about 5,000 feet, and in paddy stubble and bushes. Scicercus burkii tephrocephala. I 2; 1 unsexed. Both obtained in oak forest at 6,000 feet, the only specimens seen. [Not recorded before from Karenni, but it is known from the Karen Hills. ] Phyllergates cucullatus coronatus. IG 3 i unsexed. . A bird of dwarf bamboo brake, one specimen being obtained at 7,000 feet and the other at 8,500 feet. It has a very distinctive phrase of 4 notes, 4 times repeated each time about half an octave higher, the last so high as to be almost inaudible. ‘Pee-pi-pi-pee’ 4 times. The bird is most elusive. It has also a trilling little song, during which it flutters on a branch. Phylloscopus pulcher pulcher. 3 unsexed. Shot on top of main Nattaung ridge at 8,oo0 feet in dwarf bamboo. [This Warbler has long been known in Southern Shan States and Karenni in April, but we still do not know whether it is a winter visitor or a resident. ] 090. JOURNAL, BOMBAY ‘NATURAL AIST SOCIETY> Voll XE Phylloscopus inornatus inornatus. 2 93 2 unsexed. Phylloscopus are common in the low trees throughout, and are one of the few genera seen in the dwarf bamboos on the final ridge at 8,500 feet. Phylloscopus reguioides assamensis. 2 9; 2 unsexed. Found in the same localities as P. inornatus. [Judging by the condition of the plumage I should say that these, too, were breeding birds. Many have at one time or another met with both this species and with davisoni; as yet there is no record of what the songs and call-notes are like. | Phylloscopus reguioides c'audiae. Tone [In contradistinction to the somewhat worn dress of assamensis this bird, which is, of course, a winter visitor to Karenni, was in full body moult. ] Phylioscopus davisoni davisoni. Bae pene’ [This warbler is known tc breed on Byingyi in March. Also at Kalaw and Thandaung and it certainly must have been breeding in Karenni. | ere e Suya superci:iaris superci.iaris. TVG ees Obtained in re-growth at 5,000 feet and also in grass on open pine ridge at 6,000 feet. It has a strong shrill double note ‘tu-wut, tu-wut’. Almost certainly nesting. [Also known from the Karen Hills. | Oriolus chinensis subsp. Seen on Mawchi, road at 4,500 feet uttering a curious call ‘Miaow’ like a peevish cat. Orioius traillii traillii. I rt Obtained in evergreen at 6,000 teet; one other was seen. Carpodacus erythrinus roseatus. 210. Seen in pine and oak forest on the edge of secondary growth at 5,000 feet, and a party of about six im female dress in pine forest at 6,000 feet. Hypacanthis spinoides ambiguus. Cs eae A party in a cultivation clearing at 5,000 feet and seen on other occasions in pines at the same altitude keeping to the crowns of the trees. A distinctive, high-pitched thin call, 3 notes in quick succession followed by 4 notes in quick succession. [Is known to breed at Kalaw and it occurs in the Myitkyina Hills. It must breed early as the specimen obtained on 8 April is a juvenile with fully grown wings. | Delichon urbica subsp. A large flock was seen hawking insects over pine forest at 5,000 feet in the smoke of a forest fire. Probably on passage. Motacilla cinerea melanope. I unsexed. Fairly common on the Mawchi road at 5,000 feet, frequenting places where little streams jet on to the road. No other Wagtails seen. [The question whether the Grey Wagtail nests in the Burmese hills is still unsolved, Known from the Karen Hills, but not before from Karenni.] Se ET cn NOTES ON THE BIRDS OF NATTAUNG, KARENNI 591 Anthus hodgsoni hodgsoni. 4 @. Very common in parties along the ridges in open pine and oak forest up to 7,000 feet. [These belong to the Siberian form which is the typical race. Not pre- viously from Karenni, but is almost universally distributed in the non-breeding season in Burma. ] Zosterops palpebrosa subsp. eo + Obtained out of a pair in re-growth at 4,500 feet. [Zosterops mesoxantha was described from Taho in the Karen Hills by Salvadori and this specimen is practically a topotype. It has a tinge of yellow down the middle of the belly as Salvadori describes. However, as I pointed out some years ago, such specimens are also found in Sikkim and elsewhere ; otherwise Karen Hill and Karenni birds do not differ from palpebrosa and a larger series is needed before the validity of mesoxantha can be admitted. Mr. Riley records what seems to be the same form as cacharensts and had also named it vicinia. But if it is recognizable Salvadori’s name has many years precedence. Mr. Riley states that I misled him by uniting cacharensis and palpebrosa. I had a large series of each for examination. He does not state how many he has examined from the type localities. This is an interesting record for another reason. Recently Stresemann has suggested that szamensis is a race of palpebrosa; we now have palpebrosa from Karenni whence Wardlaw-Ramsay obtained siamensis, so that here both forms are found together. ] Zosterops erythropieura. sh ee Shot out of a large party in pine forest at 5,000 feet. The pale lemon- yellow throat and undertail coverts and the chocolate flanks of this bird are distinctive. Has the same thin day-old-chick-like cheep of Z, palpebrosa. [This is an interesting record as this White-eye has been obtained only -once before in Burma. De Schauensee records it from Monglin in Kengtung, Southern Shan States on 13 February. Presumably it is a winter visitor.! Aethopyga nipaiensis karenensis Ticehurst (Ibis. 1939, p. 755-) Wee Or GU ae The only Sunbird seen. It frequents both temperate forest, evergreen and open pine with rhododendron forest from 7,000 feet upwards, where it is common. Males predominate, the proportion seen being about 3 to 1. [Birds from Myitkyina Hills and from Bhamo Hilis belong to the typical form, The good series obtained on Nattaung, four males and three females, show that the type here is constant and easily separable from any other forms. There is in the male no maroon cn the back and no scarlet splashing on the ‘yellow breast and so they are widely separable from nipalensis. They are nearer victoviae; in this form the back is green with a very slight reddish tinge in it and there are splashings of red on the yellow of the underparts; in karenensis the back is brighter yellowish green with no red tinge and no scarlet on underparts. In addition the female is separable from both nepalensis and victoriae in having the whole crown slate-grey contrasting with the mantle ‘instead of being concolorous with it; the underparts, too, are richer yellow. ] Arachnothera magna magna. i Collected in oak forest at 6,000 feet.. The only bird seen. [It is of interest to find that the form in Karenni is magna as no speci- mens thence were available before. Birds from Arakan and. Southern Chin. Hills are magna; on the east side of the Irrawaddy in Thayetmyo, in Tharra- waddy, Pegu and Toungoo the form is auwrata. I had already ‘noted that birds from Karen Hills are somewhat intermediate between aurata and magna, and now we find magna in Karenni, as also in the Southern Shan States and N. Tenasserim. It seems that aurata is confined to the country between the Irrawaddy and the Sittang in Lower Burma. | 592. JOURNAL, BOMBAY NAPURAL HIST SOCIEL Y= Vel | Oo) = | = ¢ ° yee = ) iS) wo | 5 = | Le} 4 Qy | le SG io) omer H | Ss Ay Oo | & n | aie = eae | 1925- 6 ange? 4 Ndere 1026 7 8 | 69 4 5 | a | 1927— 8 be ea od i 19 | 1 1928-9) 6.5 17 +13 || 22 eae: 1929-30 10 38 2 14 1 bs a «| 19805 1.) 24 8) 31 oe 4 i 2 | HOS <2) i 0 ha 30 ar 8 oa 1932- 3 Braleoo le 3 1932- 4 dole 229 io a ee Gos Re OAS) 0 7) 34 na 13 4 1 : elOSE= Gula20e Soe a, 13 d i Pose 7. cig h37 2 5 2 ia ete _ 1937-8 | 36 | 89 a 22 7 | aa ae 1038=.9"|' 10° -| 60 ee ae ee Be ae me | i | | 'Totals ...| 169 | 565 | 24 | 176 | 37 Pid: ar 1 | | ' 598° JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL VHIST. SOCIBY VY.) Viol in: China and Indo-China—A. sibirica Ledeb.—; in North America— A. Millefolium Linn.—; in India—A. Millefolium Linn., A. Santolina Linn.—. 1. Rays white, pink or purple sal .. A, Millefolium., 2. Rays yellow Be oe me peas “Santolina. 1. Achillea Millefolium Linn. is found in the western Himalaya, from Kashmir to Kumaon, at altitudes of 6,000 to 9,000 feet. It extends to Northern Asia, Europe, and North America. A _ very common plant on roadsides and pastures and banks. Many healing virtues have been and are still ascribed to this herb which, whatever its virtues may be, is still regularly cultivated for medicinal purposes. The annual consumption in the British Isles alone is from 10 to 20 tons. The herb is officinal in Austria; and the leaves are officially recognized in Portugal, Russia, Sweden, and Switzerland. The herb is diaphoretic, stimulant, tonic. It 1s most useful in colds, obstructed perspiration, and the commencement of fevers. It opens the pores freely and purifies the blood. It has also proved useful in hysteria, flatulence, heartburn, colic, and epilepsy. It is much used in England as a vulnerary, and is given internally for the suppression of haemorrhages and of profuse mucous discharges. It is employed also in intermittents and as an antispasmodic in flatulent colic and nervous affections. Its hot infusion is used as an emmenagogue in France, and also in the suppression of the lochia; it is sometimes employed in low exanthe- matous fevers with difficult eruption. In the United States the infusion is occasionally used in acute suppression of the menses. An ointment made by the Highlanders of Scotland of the fresh plant is good for piles, and is also considered good against the scab in sheep. Milfoil tea is held in much repute in the Orkneys for dispelling melancholy. A decoction of the whole herb is employed for. bleeding piles, and is good for kidney disorders. It has the reputation also of being a preventive of baldness, if the head be washed with it. A medicinal tincture is prepared from the whole plant with spirit of wine. This, when employed in a diluted form of. the first or third decimal strength, and in small doses from five to ten drops in a tablespoonful of cold water, will act admirably in arresting bleeding from the lungs, the kidneys, or the nose, especially in florid hectic subjects. It has been found by healthy provers that stronger or larger doses of any preparation of the herb will induce or aggravate one or another of these bleedings. To stimulate and promote the appetite the fresh juice of the plant may be had, a dessertspoonful three times in the day. 616 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XLI Italian peasants apply the fresh juice topically as an astringent to piles, varicose ulcers, and sore nipples. Among the Spanish- Californians the fresh plants are used for stanching the blood in recent wounds. Linnaeus recommended the bruised herb, fresh, as an cotuca: vulnerary and styptic. It is employed in Norway for the cure of rheumatism, and the fresh leaves chewed are said to cure toothache. In France the powdered dried leaves are used as a sternutatory. Or the leaf, being rolled up, is applied to the nostrils to cause bleeding and thus afford relief to headache. In Scotland a warm decoction of the fresh leaves is regarded as a family specific against the colds and other ailments common to childhood. Externally, a strong decoction of the leaves has been used as an injection into the nostrils to stay bleeding from the nose. It is similarly of service for piles, and for female floodings, because exerting a special local action on the organs within the middle trunk. It is further of benefit for sore nipples as a lotion, and for a relaxed sore throat as a gargle; also as a hair-wash. An infusion was used by the Winnebag Indians of North America to bathe swellings. For earache a wad of the leaves, also the infusion was put into the ear. In California the leaves steeped in hot water are considered very healing applications to cuts or bruises, and are used for poulticing skin rash. The flowering plant or flowers are stimulant, aromatic, sudorific, tonic, astringent, diuretic, and vulnerary. An essential oil, ex- tracted from the flowers, is taken in a dose of from three to five drops to stimulate and promote the appetite. Mahommedan writers acknowledge the virtues of the plant collected in the wild state, when in flower. In Sweden and in some parts of Africa the plant has been used in the manufacture of beer. Linnaeus considered beer. thus brewed more intoxicating than when hops were used. Achilleine, an amorphous bitter alkaloid of unknown composition, has been isolated. Afghanistan: Buimaderan—; Arabic: Suila—; Bombay: Rojmari—; Cali- fornia: Milfoil, Old Man, Yarrow—; Catalan: Herba de tall, Marfull, Milfulles, Percala—; Colombia: Colchén de pobre—; Cutch: Biranjasif—; Danish: Roellike—; Dutch: Duizenblaad, Duizendblad—; English: Bad Man’s Play- thing, Bloodwort, Carpenter’s Weed, Devil’s Nettle, Devil’s Plaything, Knight’s Milfoil, Milfoil, Nosebleed, Old Man’s Mustard, Old Man’s Pepper, Sanguinary, Soldier’s Woundwort, Staunch Grass, Staunchweed, Thousand Leaf, Thousand Weed, Yarrow, Yarroway—; French: Achilléine, Endove, Herbe a la coupure, Herbe au charpentier, Herbe aux charpentiers, Herbe aux cochers, Herbe aux coupures, Herbe aux militaires, Herbe aux voituriers, Herbe a saigner, Herbe de Saint Jean, Herbe militaire, Millefeuille, Saigne nez, Seignenez, Sourcils de Vénus—; German: Achilleskraut, Angerblume, Anserine, Bauchwehkraut, ” Edelgarbe, Fasankraut, Feldgarbe, Gachel, Gacht, Gaensezungen, Gaerb Garwekraut, Gerbel, Gollenkraut, Gor, Gotteshand, Grillen, Grinsing, Gruensing, Gruettblume, Gruetzenkraut, Grundheil, Hasegerf, Hasengarbem, Heftkraut, Heidekraut, Jase, Judenkraut, Jungfraukraut, Kachelblume, Kar- weblume, Katzenfittich, Katzenschwanz, Kelkenkraut, Kerpen, Kraenzel, Krebselkraut, Loewenfusskraut, Margaretenkraut, Marienkranz, Reels, Reelse, THE MEDICINAL AND POISONOUS COMPOSITES OF INDIA 617 Relaka, Releke, MJRelik, MRelkike, Doehlke, Roelken, Roellicke, Roelskraut, Rohlech, Ruels, Saegkraut, Schabab, Schabor, Schafgarbe, Schaffripchen, Schafrippe, Schafzunge, Schapschar, Schober, Sichelblume, Sichelschnitt, Siebengartenkraut, Tausendblatt, Weisses Garbenkraut, Zeiskraut, Zimmer- mannskraut—; Greek: Myriophyllon—; Hindi: Gandana—; Hungarian: Ezer-levelu-fa—; Irish: Athairthalmhna—; Italian: Millefoglie, Millefoglio— ; Kashmir: Momadruchopandiga—; Malta: Common Milfoil, Yarrow, Haxixa tal morliti—, Pacific Coast: Dog-daisy, Green Arrow, Milfoil, Nose-bleed, Oldman’s Pepper, Soldier’s Woundwort, Yarrow—; Persian: Buimaderan—; Polish: Tysiacznik ziele—; Portuguese: Mil em rama, Miifolha, Milfolhada— =; Roumanian: Coada_ soarecelului—; Russian: ‘Tesyachelistnik—; Saxon: Gearwe—; Spanish: Filigrana, Manzanilla de los montes, Milefolio, Milenrama, Milhojas, Yerba de Aguiles, Yerba de San Juan—; Swedish: Roelleke, Roflleka— ; Urdu: Biranjasifa—. 2. Achillea Santolina Linn. is found in Baluchistan, whence it extends to Afghanistan, Iran and the Mediterranean. It is widely distributed in the East and in Northern Africa. The plant is in common use as a tonic and carminative in Iran and Sind. At Chaman, in Baluchistan, it is given to children to cure stomachache. The strong odour of the herb drives away fleas and other noxious insects. Arabic: Rebey-el-ghebel— ; Egypt: Ba’eytheran, Bishrin, Ghobeyra, Gesum— ; Iraq: Gaisum, QOaisum—; Kalat: Bo-i-madaran—; Mach: Boemadran— $; Persian: Biranjasib, Biranjasif, Bu-i-maderan—; Pushtu: Zawal—; Teheran: Bumadran—. ADENOSTEMMA. The genus consists of 5 or 6 American species, one of them cosmopolitan. Adenostemma viscosum Forst. is found in all tropical countries. It occurs throughout India, Ceylon, and the Malay Peninsula. It is common in waste ground and in damp spots in forests, ascending to 4,000 feet in Malaya, to 5,000 feet on the Himalaya and other ranges, and to 6,000 feet in Ceylon. The plant is used medicinally in La Reunion, the leaves are antispasmodic, and the fresh juice is a good stimulant and sternutatory. . Malay: Rumput babi, Rumput pasir, Sumbong gajah—. AGERATUM. The, venus numbers 45 American species, one of them cosmopolitan. Ageratum conyzoides Linn. is one of the commonest weeds of the Tropics. It is found throughout India, common everywhere in waste ground and on the outskirts of villages; it ascends the Himalayas to 5,000 feet. The plant is applied externally in ague. Its juice is said to be a good remedy for prolapse of the anus. It is used in Togoland to cure fever. In Yoruba a decoction is given for ‘craw-craw’ externally and for fever internally. An infusion is prescribed in 618 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XLI Brazil and Guiana as a stimulant tonic in diarrhoea and flatulent colic. | The juice of the root is said to possess antidysenteric properties and, together with the leaves, is a common Indo-Chinese remedy for diarrhoea and dysentery. The juice of the root is moreover credited with the virtue of preventing the formation of stone or calculus in the bladder. In Ceylon the leaves are commonly applied to wounds and sores; they act as a styptic and heal them quickly. In Gold Coast Colony the leaves are squeezed, and the juice is used as a lotion mor the eyes.. In Sierra Weone the chief use ofthe Jleavessisma. remedy for craw-craw; they are also applied to chronic ulcers, and intravaginally for uterine troubles; crushed in water they are given as an emetic. In Southern Nigeria a decoction is both used as a lotion for craw-craw and taken internally for fever. In Siberia pneumonia in children is treated by rubbing an extract of the leaves on the chest. In South Cameroons the leaves pounded with Ocimum and macerated in water along with ‘bush pepper’ are prepared as a purgative enema. Some tribes in Portuguese Congo use it in the treatment of sleeping sickness. The plant is a household medicine in Madagascar, Mauritius and La Reunion. As a fomentation the leaves and stems are used in skin diseases, more particularly leprosy; and they are prescribed as a bath to patients with ecchymoses. A poultice of the leaves is applied on boils; it is said to prevent tetanus if applied to a wound. A cold decoction of the roots is used as a lotion in purulent ophthalmia. Ashanti: Gu-ekura, Guakuro—; Australia: Billy-goat weed—; Bengal: Dochunty, Uchunti—: Benin: Ebighoedore, Ehigodore—; Betsimisaraka: Fotsivony, Tinimbo—; Bombay: Osari, Sahadevi—; Brazil: Camara apeba, Fumo bravo, Mentrasto, Suacuaira—; Ceylon: Pumpillu—; Efik: Ikongifoiyen, Otitidahadaha—; English: Goatweed, White Weed—; Ewe: Mimang—; Fanti: Efungmormoe—; French: Herbe &4 Madame—; French Guiana: Raguet fran- cois—; Gold Coast: Goat Weed—; Gujerati: Ajgandha, Gandharisedardi, Mankdamari—; Ibo: Ikbu odols—; Ibuzo: Ikbu odolo—; Indo-China: Bong thui, Bu xich, Cut lon, Thang hong ke—; Karwar: Ghayamari—; Kathiawar : Makadamari—; Konkani: Sahadevi—; Lagos: Imi-esu—; La Reunion: Herbe a bouc—; Lepcha: Nam-yu muk—; Madagascar: Hanitrinimpantsaka— ; Mano: Dah vo—; Malay: Sianggit, Tahi ayam, Tombok jantan—; Malayalam: Appa, Muryanpacha—; Marathi: Ghanera osadi—; Mauritius: Herbe de bouc—; Mende: Ngugbe, Ngulugbei, Yanigbei—; Mundari: Purudumbu—; Nepal: Ilami—-; New Caledonia: Adivijalakara—; Oloke-Meji: Imi-esu—-; Owerri: Ahihia-nwa-oshi-naka, Akwukwo-moosinaka, Osu angweri ngwa—; Sierra Leone: Akan yunyun, Craw-craw plant—; Sinhalese: Hulantala—; Timne: Balkeyan, Ka-balkeyan, Keyan—; Twi: Guakuro, Gu airkuna, Gu-ekura— ; Umu Ahia: Osu angrocri ngwa—; Uriya: Boksunga, Poksunga—; Wassaw: Ahaban kankan—; Yoruba: Akkaw-yungun, Imi-eshu—. ANAPHALIS. The genus consists of 50 species, chiefly temperate and mountain plants of Asia, Europe, and America. A. margaritacea Benth. and Hook. is used medicinally in North America. | THE MEDICINAL AND: POISONOUS COMPOSITES OF INDIA 619 In the Nilghiris several species are used for cut wounds. The more commonly employed is A. neelgerryana DC., which occurs at an altitude of 7,000-8,250 feet. The fresh leaves are bruised and applied to the wound as a plaster. Nilghivis: Katplaster—; Sanskrit: Raktaskandana, Vranapata—. ANTHEMIS. The genus includes 120 species, natives of Europe as far as Siberia—only one being native of Abyssinia—, and often naturalised elsewhere. A. arvensis Linn., A. Cotula Linn., and A. nobilis Linn. are used medicinally in Europe and in North America; A. Gayana Boiss. and A. odontostephana Boiss. in Baluchistan; A. Wiedemanniana Fisch. and Mey. in Persia. 1. Achenes turbinate, tubercled, tip crenulate oe PA COsula. 2. Achenes Smooth, sulcate, slightly narrowed at the base, angular, truncate at the apex; margin acute, narrow ae oe or ... A. Gayana. 3. .Achenes cylindtic;’’ ribbed, tubercled; tip of outer toothed, of inner with a short auricle A. odontostephana. 1. Anthemis Cotula Linn. occurs in Baluchistan and Northern Asia. It is distributed westwards to Britain and the Canary Islands; and is found in Europe, North Africa, Siberia and West Asia. It has been introduced into North America. The flowers and the leaves are tonic, antispasmodic, emmen- agogue, and emetic. They have been used with success in sick headache, in convalescence from fevers, and in the absence or abnormal stoppage of the menses. The warm infusion of 1 ounce in rt pint of boiling water is taken in wineglassful doses when required. A strong decoction causes sweating and vomiting. It is said to be nearly as valuable as opium in dysentery. It has also been used in scrofula, dysmenorrhoea and flatulent gastritis. It is administered to induce sleep in asthma. Applied to the skin fresh and bruised it is a safe vesicant. A poultice helpful in piles can be made from the herb boiled until soft, or it can be-used as a bath or fomentation. | In hysteria the herb is used in Europe as an antispasmodic and emmenagogue. It is prescribed in North America for pulmonary and rheumatic affections. The whole plant has a very: foetid odour, which rubbing increases. It is full of an acrid juice which is liable to blister. Bees dislike it, and it is said to drive away flies and fleas. Catalan: Camamilla pudenta—; England: Balder Brae, Baldeyebrow, Cam- omile, Camovyne, Cotula, Dog’s Camomile, Dog-binder, Dog Daisy, Dog-fennel, Dog-finkle, Flowan, Hog’s Fennel, Horse Daisy, Jayweed, Madder, Madenwede, Marse, Marg, Mathes, Mayweed, Morgan, Murg, Poison Daisy, Stinking Camomile, Wild Camomile—; French: Amarelle, Amouroche, Bouillot, Camo- mille fétide, Camomille puante, Chaillerie, Chamaran, Chamarou, Herboula, Maroule, Maroune, Maroute, Maroute puante, Oeil-de-vache, OQueuneron— ; German: Hundskamille, Hundskamilleniraut, Stinkende Kamille—; Italian: Camomilla puzzolente—; Pacific Coast: Bald-eyebrow, Chigger-weed, Dill-weed, 620 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL GIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XLI Camomile, Dog Daisy, Dog-fennel, Fetid Mayweed, Fieldwort, Hog-fennel, Horse Daisy, Madder, Mayweed, Poison Daisy, Stinking Camomile— ; Roumanian : Mararui-cainalui, Mormorita, Romanita-puturoasa—; Spanish: Cotula fetida, Manzanilla hedionda—; Uruguay: Manzanilla—. 2. Anthemis Gayana Boiss. inhabits Baluchistan whence it extends to Persia. In the Harboi Hills the leaves are eaten to cure pains in the chest. Harboi Hills: Piunphuli—. 3. Anthemis odontostephana Boiss. is found at Peshawar, whence it spreads to Afghanistan, Baluchistan, and Persia. A decoction of the flowers is used in Baluchistan as a febrifuge and carminative. ARCTIUM. The genus consists of 3 or 4 species spread over temperate Asia and Europe. Arctium Lappa Linn. is found in Western Himalaya from Kashmir to Simla at altitudes of 6,o000-8,000 ft, and also in Western Tibet where it ascends to 11,000-13,000 feet. It extends westwards towards the Atlantic and occurs in Syria, Persia, and Khorasan, as well as in Europe. It is common in North and Central China, and Manchuria, and is abundant in the United States. The root is regarded throughout India as depurative and anti- phlogistic. In Teheran the root, with that of sarsaparilla, is used as a remedy for syphilis. In the Pacific Coast States of America the dried first year root is considered alterative, aperient, diuretic, and diaphoretic. The root, stem, and seeds are used medicinally in China. The seeds are alterative, depurative, diaphoretic, and diuretic. The plant grows freely throughout Europe and the United States on waste ground and about old buildings, by roadsides and in fairly damp places. It had a great reputation in the past, and its fruits and roots still figure largely among the drugs commonly used by herbalists in Europe and America. It is alterative, diuretic, and diaphoretic; one of the finest blood purifiers in the herbal system. In all skin diseases it is a certain remedy and has effected a cure in many cases of eczema. The root is principally employed, but the leaves and fruits—erroneously called seeds—are equally valuable. Both root and seed may be taken as decoction of 1 ounce to a pint and a half of water, boiled down to 1 pint, in doses of a wine- glassful three or four times a day. The antiscorbutic properties of the mucilaginous, demulcent root make the decoction very useful for boils, scurvy, and rheumatic affections; it has in addition been recommended for external use as a wash for ulcers and scaly skin disorders. It is officinal in Portugal and Spain. An infusion of the leaves is useful to impart strength and tone to the stomach, for some forms of long-standing indigestion. When applied externally as a poultice, the leaves are highly resolvent for THE MEDICINAL “AND POISONOUS COMPOSITES.OF INDIA 621 tumours and gouty swellings, and relieve bruises and inflamed surfaces generally. The bruised leaves have been applied by the peasantry in many countries as cataplasms to the feet and as a remedy for hysterical disorders. From the seeds (or fruits), both a medicinal tincture and a fluid extract are prepared, of benefit in chronic skin diseases when taken, in doses of from ten to thirty drops with two tablespoonfuls of cold water three times a day, steadily for several weeks or months. Americans consider the seeds more efficacious and prompt in their action than the other parts of the plant. They are relaxant and demulcent, with a limited amount of tonic property: Their influence upon the skin is due largely to their being of such an oily nature; they affect both the sebaceous and sudoriferous glands and restore to the skin that smoothness vetoed is a sign of normal healthy action. The infusion or decoction of the eecee, 1S employed in dropsical complaints, more especially in cases where there is co-existing derangement of the nervous system, and is considered by many to be a specific for all affections of the kidneys, for which it may with advantage be taken several times a day, before meals. The root contains inulin, mucilage, sugar, a bitter crystalline glucoside called lappin, a little resin, and tannic acid. The ashes of the plant, burnt when green, yield carbonate of potash abund- antly, and also some nitre. Anglo-Saxon: Fox’s clote—; Catalan: Bardana, Llapassa, Repalassa—; China: E Shih, Niu P’ang, Niu Tzu, Ta Li, Wu Shih—; Dutch: Dokke- bladen, Klis, Klisse, Klit—; English: Aireve, Airup, Beggar’s Buttons, Burdock, Clithe, Clot-bur, Cockle-buttons, Cuckle-buttons, Cuckoo Button, Great Burdock, Happy Major, Hardock, Harebur, MHerrif, Hurbur, Lappa, Love Leaves, Personata, Philanthropium, Turkey-bur, Thorny Bur—; French: Bardane, Bardane a grosses tétes, Bouillon noir, Coupeau, Dogue, Glouteron, Glotteron, Grande bardane, Gratteau, Grippe, Guippon, Herbe aux bardanes, Herbe aux teigneux, Lappe, Oreille de géant, Peignerolle, Picons, Poire de vallée—; German: Gemeine Klette, Grosse Klette, Klette—; Greek: Arkeion, Arktion, Prosopion, Prosopis—; Jtalian: Arsio, Bardana, Lappa maggiore, Lappola maggiore—; Malaya: Ngow chee—; Pacific Coast: Bazzies, Beggar’s Buttons, Burdock, Cuckoo-button, Great Burdock, Harebur, Turkey-bur—; Polish: Lop- ian—; Portuguese: Bardana—; Roumanian: Brustur, Lipan—; Russian: Lapushnik, Rapeynik—; Spanish: Amores ruines, Bardana, Lampazo, Lapa Teheran: Bardane—. ARTEMISIA. This genus includes about 280 species, natives mostly of the northern hemisphere, a few from South Africa and South America. The following species are used medicinally in Europe.— A. -Absmthium Linn., A. abrotanum. Linn., A. arborescens Linn., A. caerulescens Linn., A. campestris Linn., A. Dracunculus Linn., A. gallica Willd., A. glacialis Linn., A. Herba-alba Asso, A. his- panica Lam., A. maritima Linn., A. Mutellina Willd., A. pontica Linn., A. scoparia Waldst. and Kit., A. spicata Wulf., A. vallesiana Lam., A. vulgaris Linn.—; in Palestine and Syria—A. Herba-alba Asso, A. judaica Linn.—; in Arabia and Egypt—A. judaica Linn.—; in Persian and Turkistan—A. Cina Berg., A. Vahliana 622°. JOURNAL, BOMBAY VNATU RAL TST SO CLE Y ,aVicl Xam Kostel—; in China. A. annua Linn., A.:apiacea Hance, A. capil- laws ‘Thunb: 4. japonica, Daunb. Ae em hearn Mig., A: ’ stelleriana Bess., A. vulgans Linn.—; in ado: China—A. abrotanum Linn., A. annua Linn., A. apiacea Hance, A. capillaris Thunb., A. carvi- Folia. IROxb.y eA: Sian Berg:, A. japonica Vhunb,, A. Heiskeana Mig., A. maritima Linn., A. vulgaris Linn.—; in Malaya—A. maritima Linn., A. vulgaris ane in the Philippine Islands—A. vulgaris Linn.—; in North America—A. Absinthium Linn., A. ludoviciana Nutt., A. Santonicum Linn.—; in the Pacific Coast States—A. Absinthium Linn., A. annua Linn., A. californica Less., A. dracun- culoides Pursh., A. tridentata Nutt., A. vulgaris Linn.—; in Mexico—A. mexicana Willd.—; in North Africa and the Canary Islands—A. ramosa C. Sm.—; in South Africa—A. afra Jacq.—. A. Heads heterogamous, outer flowers female, disk- flowers hermaphrodite, sterile. Receptacle naked 1. Perennial . Dracunculus. ae As He dak 2. Annual. Very strong scented a3 2. A. annua. 3. Annual, or rootstock perennial. Faintly scented 8. A. scobaria. B. Heads homogamous. Flowers all fertile. Receptacle naked ee Bs. haces w. 5. A. maritima C. Heads heterogamous. Ray-flowers female, disk-flowers hermaphrodite, all fertile. 1. Receptacle puberulous. Perennial with rather large head ie ae ee i: Osean persica: 2. cee acle naked. Annual; quite glabrous é nt bee QUA ACO MUL OUIte a Perennials with usually small heads. i. Leaves large, ovate, lobed, laciniate or 1-2 pin- natipartite ie s noel On) Aun UULSATISS ii. Leaves. long-petioled, ovate- pinnatisect oes Jen te SOCTOUUMT: D. Heads heterogamous. Ray-flowers female, disk-flowers hermaphrodite, both fertile. Receptacle covered with long hairs 1. Perennial ie ae aes .. I. A. Absinthium: 2. Annual or biennial San ae ... 9. A. Siversiana. 1. Artemisia Absinthium Linn. inhabits Kashmir where it is found at altitudes of 5,000—7,o000 ft. It is distributed over Northern Asia, Afghanistan, and westwards to the Atlantic. It is now naturalized and rather common in eastern Canada to Pennsylvania, growing along roadsides and waste places. The herb has a strong fragrant odour which exercises a powerful influence over the nervous system. Its tendency to produce head- ache and other nervous disorders is well known by travellers in Kashmir and Ladak, who suffer severely when marching through the extensive tracts of country covered with this plant. The whole plant is an aromatic tonic, and formerly enjoyed a high reputation in debility of the digestive organs. Wormwood tea, or the powdered herb in small doses, mixed in a little soup, will serve to relieve bilious melancholia, and will help to disperse the yellow hue of jaundice from the skin. The juice of the larger leaves which grow from the root before the stalk appears has been used as a remedy for jaundice and dropsy, but it is intensely nauseous. A light infusion of the tops THE MEDICINAL AND POISONOUS COMPOSITES OF INDIA 623 of the plant, used fresh, is excellent for all disorders of the stomach, creating an appetite, promoting digestion, and preventing sickness after meals, but it is said to produce the contrary effect if made too strong. The flowers, dried and powdered, are said to be most effectual as a vermifuge, and used to be considered excellent in agues. Before the discovery of cinchona they were largely used in inter- mittents. The plant yields by distillation a dark green or yellow oil which is used as worm-expeller. However, Caius and Mhaskar have shown experimentally that neither the herb nor the oil are effective as anthelmintics against hookworms. In large doses the volatile oil is an active narcotic poison. The main constituents of the oil are absinthol and absinthin, the former largely responsible for the characteristic odour of the plant and the latter for its intense bitter taste. The herb is prescribed in the form of a poultice or fomentation as an antiseptic and discutient. Arabic: Afsantin—; Bologna: Zicus—; Catalan: Donsell, Donzell, Donzell mascle—; Como: Medegh—; Danish: Malurt—; Deccan: Vilayatiafsantin— ; Dutch: Alsem, Groote Alsem—; English: Absinth, Green Ginger, Madderwort, Mingwort, Mugwort, Warmot, Wermuth, Wormwood—; French: Absin menu, Absinthe, Absinthe amére, Absinthe commune, Absinthe vulgaire, Alliene, Aloine, Alunine, Aluyne, Alvine, Alvuine, Aoussin, Armoise-absinthe, Armoise ameére, Grande Absinthe, Herbe sainte, Herbe aux vers—; Friuli: Assinz, Sinz—; Genoa: Bonmegu, Erba medgu—; German: Aelsch, Allsam, Allsei, Alsam, Alsch, Alsen, Baermede, Bitteralsen, Bitterbeifuss, Bitterkraut, Elch, Else, Elzkraut, Isem, Kampferkraut, Kittelkraut, Knoopvanalsen, Magenkraut, Malnit, Meelrasch, Pardehan, Pardesan, Vraemte, Waermde, Waermkraut, Warmuede, Wermde, Weissrauch, Wermuth, Wiegenkraut, Woerken, Woermd, Woermke, Wormeth, Wraemte, Wroembk, Wuermken, Wurmei, Wurmet, Wurmtod—; Greek: Apsidia, Apsinthia, Apsinthion, Apsinthos, Apsithea, Apsithia—; Hindi: Vilayatiafsantin— ; Italian: Assenzio—; Lombardy: Incens, Incens de bigat—; Malayalam: Shula- bandha—; Malta: Wormwood, Assenzio, Assenziu—; Norwegian: Malurt—; Pacific Coast: Absinthium, Madderwort, Mingwort, Oldwoman, Wormwood— ; Padua: Bun maja—; Pavia: Assenzi—; Persian: Afsantin—; Piedmont: Bonme, Bonmi, Dusang, Erba meja, Erba mia, Fort, Incenso, Insens, Insens grousser , Medighdt, Ourtmia, Ourtmiglia— ; Potenza: Naseienzo— ; Reggio: Aluina, Alvina, Asseinzi— ; Romagna: Absanta, Absent, Absent rumen, Absent dal foj lerghi— ; Roumanian.: Pelin—; Russian: Polin—; Sanskrit: Damar—; Spanish: Ajenjé, Doncel—; Treviso: Bon maistro—; Tuscany: Assenzo—; Verona: Medego maistro—. 2. Artemisia annua Linn. occurs in the Punjab, from Peshawar to Waziristan, ascending up to 5,500 ft. It spreads to Afghanistan, Indo-China, China, Siberia, and westwards to Hungary. In China and Malaya the dried leaves and stalks are used in skin diseases. The herb is a popular medicine in Indo-China, where it is considered a good stomachic and diuretic, and is pre- scribed in jaundice and in skin diseases. Chinese: Huang Hua Hao, Ch’ing Hao—; Indo-China: Che noi, Hoang hoa cao, Nhan tran—; Malaya: Ching hoh—. 3. Artemisia caruifolia Roxb. is found in eastern Bengal, Assam, Nepal, Burma, whence it extends over to China. 624 “JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST? SO Cli ALY, soles xuen The toasted plant is much used medicinally in Annam. It is recommended for fevers, chronic diarrhoea, phthisis with emaciation, purulent scabies with ulcers, and intestinal troubles. Externally it is applied to wounds due to metallic instruments. Annam: Cay thanh hao, Co thanh hao, Ran hao, Thanh cao, Thanh hao—. 4. Artemisia Dracunculus Linn. is found in Western Tibet and in the western Himalaya at altitudes of 14,000-16,000 ft. I1t is distributed to Afghanistan, Western Asia, South and Mid Russia. The aromatic leaves are credited with aperient, stomachic, stimulant, and febrifuge properties. Dutch: Dragon—; English: Little Dragon Mugwort, Tarragon—; French: Dragon, Dragonne, Estragon, Fargon, Herbe au dragon, Herbe dragonne—; German: Dragun, Kaisersalat—; Italian: Dragontea—; Portuguese: Estragao— ; Roumanian : Tarhon—; Russian: Estragon—; Spanish: Dragoncillo, Estragon—. 5 Artemisia maritima Linn., in its many variations of forms, has an extremely wide distribution in the northern hemisphere of the Old World, occurring mostly in saltish soils. It is found in the salt plains of Western Tibet, where it grows in abundance and ascends up to 9,000-14,0o00 ft. It occurs at an altitude of 7,000-9,000 ft. in the Western Himalaya from Kashmir to Kumaon. It covers immense tracts in Northern Asia from Chinese Mongolia to Central Siberia, the region of the Caspian, and Southern Russia. It is found on saline soils in Hungary, on the coasts of the Baltic, of France and the Mediterranean, and in the salt marshes of the British Isles. In Britain it spreads as far as Wigton on the West and Aberdeen on the East; it also thrives in north-east Ireland and in the Channel Islands. The medicinal properties of the plant are those of a slight tonic, inferior in efficacy to common wormwood; and it is not often employed except in discutient and antiseptic fomentations, for inflammations, tumours, and foul ulcers; where its topical application has been thought beneficial. It is still often made use of by country people for intermittent fever. | In Southern Afghanistan and Baluchistan ‘the plant is much used as an antiperiodic. An infusion, and also decoction, of the fresh plant has been very successfully used in cases of ague, intermittent and remittent fever. At ‘Kirani, near Quetta, the plant. 1s" siven sto. ;childrenutor stomach-ache; at Sanjawi it is a cure for jaundice. In Bombay, the Hakims prescribe it in doses of 2 to 3 drachms as an anthelmintic, and also deobstruent and stomachic tonic. In the form of a poultice, they use it to relieve the pain caused by the bites of scorpions and venomous reptiles. But Mhaskar and Caius have successfully demonstrated that, whether it be snake bite or scorpion sting, the treatment is useless. The flower-heads are collected from the villages around Teheran and sold as a vermifuge. There is little doubt that they were used by the Greeks and Romans to expel intestinal worms, and it is a matter of certainty that Arabian and Persian physicians have always prescribed them as an anthelmintic. During the war THE MEDICINAL AND POISONOUS COMPOSITES OF INDIA 625 both seeds and leaves were tried and found to be effective. Later Simonsen examined the leaves and flowering tops of A. maritima (A. brevifolia Wall.) growing in Chitral, Afghanistan, and Baluchi- stan, and obtained from o to 1 per cent of santonin, the amount being greater when the flowers are just appearing. Avabic: Afsanthinulbarh, Sarifun, Sariqun, Shih, Shiharmani—; Bhotta: Sefedpurcha—; Bombay: Kiramaniova—; Catalan: Donsell mari—; English: Drooping Sea Wormwood, English Sea Wormwood, French Sea Wormwood, Levant Sea Wormwocd, Roman Wormwood, Santonica, Sea Mugwort, Sea Wormwood, Wormseed—; French: Absinthe maritime, Armoise maritime— =; Gujerati: Chhuvariajamoda, Kirmanidinechi—; Hindi: Ajavayana, Chhuari— , Indo-China: Chi nai—; Kivani: Zher—; Marathi: Kirmaniova, Surabandi— ; Persian: Afsanthinulbarh, Darmaneh, Sariqun, Shih—; Sanjawi: Tarkha- sperah—; Sanskrit: Chhara, Chauhara, Gandha, Jantunashana, Khurapushpika, Parasi, Yavani, Yavaniya—; Spanish: Ajengo maritimo—; Teheran: Dhar- mane—; Urdu: Darmanah—. 6. Artemisia persica Boiss. is found at 9,o00-14,000 ft. in Western Tibet, whence it extends to Afghanistan, Southern Persia, and Kurdistan. The plant is used as a tonic, febrifuge, and vermifuge. | Arabic: Afsantinulbarh, Sariqun, Shih—; Gujerati : Pardesidauno—; Marathi: Davana—; Persian: Afsantinulbarh, Sariqun, Shih—. 7, Artemisia sacrorum Ledeb. occurs in Western Tibet and Kunawar. It is found in Kumaon on the interior ranges bordering Tibet between 10,000 and 12,000 ft. It extends to MDahuria, Siberia, Central and South Russia. The plant is given to horses in affections of the head. Bhotia: Kalapurcha—; Ladak: Burmack, Tatwen—; Punjab: Burnak, Chumbar, Jau, Munya, Niurtsi, Tatwen, Zbur—. 8. Artemisia scoparia’ Waldst. and Kit. occurs in Western Tibet at altitudes of 7,000-12,000 ft., in the Western Himalayz from Kashmir to Lahul at 5,000-7,000 ft., in Sind, in the Punjab, in the Upper Gangetic Plain. Eastwards it extends to China and Japan, westwards to Afghanistan and Central Europe. In the Punjab the infusion is given as a purgative, and the smoke is considered good for burns. _ At Las Bela the plant is used as a cure’ for pain in the ear. Baluchi: Gwatag—; Bombay: Churisaroj, Danti—; Brahui: Jir, Khisunjir, Luling—; Las Bela: Gajar—; Punjab: Biur, Dona, Durunga, Jhan, Lasaj, Marua, Pilajau—. g. Artemisia Siversiana Willd. is found at 8,o00-10,000 ft. in the Western Himalaya from Kashmir to Lahul, and at 12,000- Mq,Ooo wit \imeVVestern hibéet. it extends “Wor China- whence 11 spreads westwards to South Russia. The plant is much used in India where it is considered tonic, deobstruent, febrifuge and anthelmintic. It is applied externally as a discutient and antiseptic. The hakims prescribe the drug freely. 626° JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL ist > SiO Chia 5 oles lel The plant ts also held in great esteem by the vaids and its place in Ayurveda is undisputed. Arabic: Afsantin—; Bengal: Dana, Dona—; Bombay: Downa—; Canarese : Davana—; Gujerati: Damro—; Hindi: Dauna—; Marathi: Davana, Rana- davana—; Persian: Afsantin—; Sanskrit: Agnidamanaka, Bahukantaka, Brahmajata, Damana, Damanaka, Damani, Dandi, Danta, Devashekhara, Gandhotkata, Guchhaphala, Jatila, Kshudradussparsha, Kshudrakantakari, Kulapatra, Kulapatraka, Madanaka, Muni, Munipatra, Panduraga, Patri, Pavitraka, Pundarika, Pushpachamara, Tapasaptri, Tapaswipatra, Tapodhana, Vanadamanaka—; Urdu: Afsantin—. to. Artemisia vulgaris Linn. is found throughout the mount- ainous districts of India, ascending up to 5,000-12,000 ft. in the Western Himalaya, and up to 5,000-8,o00 feet in Sikkim, the Khasia, Ava and Martaban Mountains. It grows at Mount Abu, in Marwar, and on the Western Ghats, from the Konkan south- wards to Ceylon. It extends to temperate Europe and Asia, to Siam and Java. The herb has emmenagogue and antispasmodic properties; the root is tonic and antispasmodic. | The plant is considered to be a valuable stomachic, deobstruent, and antispasmodic; it is prescribed in infusion and electuary in cases of obstructed menses and hysteria. Externally it is used in fomentations given in skin diseases and foul ulcers as an alterative. The expressed juice is used in diseases of children. It is applied to the head of young children for the prevention of convulsions. The leaves and tops are administered in nervous and spasmodic affections connected with debility, in asthma and diseases of the brain, “In Persia, in Afohanistan, “and throughout Indias a strong decoction is given as a vermifuge, and a weak one to children in measles. .An infusion is given as a tonic. The plant is much used medicinally in Indo-China, where the leaves and the flowers are considered as aromatic, emmenagogue, stomachic, antispasmodic, and anthelmintic. The boiled leaves are used as a poultice in headache; dried and cut into small fragments they are used to cauterize wounds. In China, Japan and Indo-China inflammable cones or ‘moxa’ are obtained by grinding the leaves in a stone mortar with water, separating the coarser particles, and drying what remains. Moxi- bustion,:or:the method jof cauterizine the skin: “by “burning, “is resorted to for a very larce mlmber of “diseases, irom) i1cheato sterility. In Annam the leaf is used in haemorrhage: epistaxis, blood vomiting, haematuria. It is also recommended for metrorrhagia, dysentery, intestinal and urinary troubles. It is highly praised as a vermicide. It is used in eczema, herpes, and purulent scabies. In Malaya the leaves are employed as a carminative and haemostatic. The tonic and stomachic properties of the plant are well known in the Philippine Islands. An infusion of the leaves is commonly used as an emmenagogue. The plant is prescribed by Sushruta in the treatment of brake bite and scorpion sting; but that the plant is. not an antidote THE MEDICINAL AND .POISONOUS COMPOSITES OF INDIA 627 a to either snake or scorpion venom has been experimentally demonstrated by Caius and Mhaskar. Anglo-Saxon: Wyrmwyrt—; Annam: Bang dai, Benh thao, Cuu thao, La Ngai, Langa cao, las ngai cuu;)La thuoec) cuu, + Ngai-diep, TLhuec’ cuu; Y thao—; Arabic: Isferaj—; Bombay: Nagdona—; Canarese: Davana, Manijji- patri— ; Catalan: Altimira—; Chinese: Ai—; Deccan: Dawan, Randawan— ; Dehra Dun: Samri, Sarmi—; Dutch: Bijvoet, Sint Jans Gordel, Sint Jans Kruid—; English: Felon Herb, Felon Wort, Fleabane, Indian Wormwood, Maidenwort, Motherwort, Mugwort, St. John’s Plant—; French: Armoise, Artémise, Ceinture de Saint Jean, Couronne de Saint Jean, Encens, Encens de mas, Fleur de Saint Jean, Herbe a cents gouts, Herbe de ja Saint-Jean, Herbe de Saint Jean, Herbe Saint Jean, Remise—; German: Alsei, Beifuss, Beiposs, Besenkraut, Bibes, Biboth, Bibs, Biefoth, Biermersch, Buck, Budschen, Kamp- ferkraut, Roterbock, Sant Johannis Guertel, Weiberkraut, Wiegenkraut, Wiesen- kraut, Wildes Wurmkraut, Wurmtod—; Garhwal: Kunja—; Greek : Artemisia— ; Guam: Yerba de Santa Maria—; Hindi: Dona, Gathivana, Majtari, Mastaru, Mastru, Nugduna—; Indo-China: Cuu ngai da, Lau cao, Ngai, Ngai cuu, Thuoc cau, Thuoc cuu, Yomogi—; Italian: Amarella, Artemisia, Canapaccia, Assenzio di siepe—; japanese: Yomogi—; Malaya: Ai, Chi ai, Khee ngai, Ki ai, Ngai—; Malayalam: Appa, Damanakam, Kattuchatti, Makkippu, Mashi- patri, Nilampala, Rirunittipacha—; Marathi: Gathona, Surband—; __ Nepal: Titapat—; Pacific Coast: Common Mugwort, Felon-herb, Green Ginger, Motherwort—; Persian: Absanthin, Absentin, Afsantin, Afsintin rumi—; Philip- pines: Santa .Maria,- Yerba de Santa maria—; Punjab: Afsuntin, Banjiru, Buimadaran, Chambra, Puujan, Tarkha, Tataur, Ubusha—; Roumanian: Pelin negru, Pelinita—; Russian: Cherdonilnik—; Sanskrit: Barha, Barhikusum, Barhipushpa, Granthika, Granthiparna, Granthiparnaka, Guchhaka, Gutthaka, Kakapushpa, Kukura, Nagadamani, Nilapushpa, Saraparni, Shuka, Shukabarha, Shukachhada,. Shukapuccha, Sthauneya, Sugandha, Svaramaguchhaka, Taila- parnaka, Vnyadamanaka, Vishirnakhya—; Saora: Adavidhavanamu—; Spanish: Artemisa, Artemisia—; Tagalog: Camaria, Tinisas—; Tamil: Mashibattiri, Virunama—; Teheran: Absint—; Telugu: Davanamu, Mashipatri— Doyona, Gonddhomaro, Nagodoyona 2 Uyiva : ASTER The genus includes 4oo species inhabiting mostly the northern temperate regions of the world. The following species are used medicinally in China—A. fastigiatus Fisch. and Max., A. scaber Thunb., A. tataricus Linn. f., A. triner- vius Roxb.—; in Indo-China—A. tataricus Linn., A. trinervius Roxb.—; in South Africa—A. erigeroides Harv., A. filifolius Vent., A. hispidus Bkr., A. serrulatus Harv.—; in California—A. puniceus inn. Aster trinervius Roxb. occurs in the Central and Western Himalaya, Nepal, Sikkim at 5,000—7,o000 ft., the Mishmi Mountains, the Khasia Hills at 3,000—6,000 ft. Thence the plant spreads over to North China and Japan. The Chinese use the root for coughs and pulmonary affections, and in the treatment of malaria and haemorrhages. Cantonese : Tsz uen—; Chinese: Ma Lan—-; Indo-China: Ma lan—; Malaya: Tsz yoon—. BIDENS. The genus includes 150 cosmopolitan species, chiefly American. B. bipinnata Linn. is used medicinally in West Africa; B. pilosa Linn. in China, Indo-China, North America, Brazil, Gold Coast, 628 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XLI Kenya, Tanganyika, and South Atrica; B. tripartita Linn. also is used in China, and B. graveolens Mart, in Brazil. Achenes ,cuneiform, tip truncate sts ras, 20 Ae eMep Aviat Achenes long, slender, narrowed from the middle to the top: 91. A. pilosa. 1. Bidens pilosa Linn. is found throughout India, Ceylon, and most of the warm countries. In Indo-China the dried flower buds ground and mixed with alcohol are used as a mouth wash in toothache. For sore eyes the pounded leaves are applied over the eyelids. In Gold Coast and in Lagos the juice of the leaves is commonly squeezed into the eyes or the ears to cure eye complaints or ear complaints. In the latter case the leaves are first warmed in water with pepper. It is also used as a styptic to stop bleeding from a wound. The Zulus chew the young shoots for the treatment of rheuma- tism. They also administer the powdered leaf in water as an enema for abdominal troubles and rub the burnt seeds into incisions on the sides for the relief of pain. The flower is a remedy for diarrhoea, and an infusion of the leaf and root a remedy for colic. The leaves are used in Brazil as a styptic in stopping the flow of blood, and as a vulnerary. They are applied to foul ulcers and swollen glands. In Colombia the infusion is used as a sudorific. Afrikaans: Duivelskerwel, Wevenaar—; Antioquia: Masiquia—; Australia: Black Fellows—; Bogota: Chipaca—; Ceylon: Ottupillu—; Chinese: Kuei Chen Ts’ao—; English: Beggar Ticks, Bur Marigold, Spanish Needles, Sweethearts— ; Ewe: Dzani pipi-—; Gold Coasi: Biack Jack—; Gujerati: Phusiun, Samara- kokadi—; Iloilo: Tubactubac—; Indo-China: Cuc ao, Quay cham thao, Tu to hoan—; Kikuyu: Michegi—; Krepi: Adzrorkpii—; Krobo: Dsetshi—; Lagos: Abere oloko, Akesinmaso—; Lepcha: Mung-gu tuk-tsong, Tuk-tsong mung- ayap—; Malay: Rumput juala—; Mano: Zikilli wissi—; Mauritius: Ville- bague—; Mende: Tombolo, Tombo-makei—; Meru: Rathangi— ; Nandi: Kipkoleit—; South Africa: Beggarsticks, Black Jack—; Suto: Moonyane—; Timne: Ebamp—; Twi: Ananse mpaane, Dwirantwi, Gyinantwi—; Yoruba: Abere-oloko— ; Zulu: uQadolo—. 2. Bidens tripartita Linn. occurs in Western Tibet, and in the marshes of Central and Western Himalaya from Nepal to Kashmir at altitudes of 3,000-5,000 ft. It is distributed to Northern Asia and Japan, and westwards to North Africa, Western ere and North America. The Chinese use the plant in chronic dysentery and for eczema. Chinese: Lang Pa Ts’ao—; English: Bur Marigold, Water Agrimony— ; Greek: Agria katephedia—. BLUMEA. The genus is eminently characteristic of India, and the species may be called the Groundsels of that country. The species number about 80; they are tropical and subtropical Asiatic, African, and Australian. B. aurita DC. is used medicinally in Gold Coast. A. Heads many, villous, small. Leaves thick, fomentose beneath ath anit uae nae oe, dlbet ld SLL CEN Gs B. ‘Heads ‘few, “small; on™ lenge slender | peduncles sof dichotomous cymes ae in cee ... 4. B. ertantha. THE MEDICINAL AND POISONOUS COMPOSITES OF INDIA 629 C. Heads very numerous, large or small. Leaves very large. 1. Pappus white cae ae Ri peeee else | CHINCIISUS. 2 bappus red a. Vall shrub, camphoraceous. Leaves thick usually silky above he ie os b. Leaves 8-18 in. long, very woolly white beneath puberulous above sas we ; Marathi: Bhangaruda—; Pampangan: Sambon—; Tagalog: Sambon, Sambong, Sambung—; Visayan: Alibhon, Alibun, Ayoban, Gabuen, Gintingintin, Guintin- guintin, Guitinguitin, Hamlibon, Lacadbulan, Lacdanbulan, Lalacdan—. 2. Blumea chinensis DC. is found in the Eastern Himalaya, Sikkim and Bhutan at 2,000—4,000 ft., Assam, the Khasia Hills, and Penang. It is not rare in the woods of the Malay Peninsula, whence it spreads over to Java and Southern China. The leaves or leafy stalks are used in Malaya as a stomachic, antispasmodic, and diaphoretic. Chinese: Chin Li Ming—; Malaya: Kow lee meng, Tombak-tombak—. 3. Blumea densiflora DC. occurs in Tropical Himalaya, Sikkim, Assam, the Mishmi, Naga, and Khasia Hills at altitudes of 2,o00— 4,000 ft. It is found in Tavoy, and extends to the Malay and Fiji Islands. | The plant yields camphor. Its leaves are occasionally used as a sudorific. Burma: Phummasin, Pungmatheing—. 4. Blumeaeriantha DC. is found in Bundelkhand, Konkan, Deccan, the Western Ghats, the South Mahratta Country. It pro- bably occurs on the West Coast of the Madras Presidency, 12 gio JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST.~SOCIETY, Vol. X11 The juice of the plant is administered as a carminative, and the herb used along with the leaves of Vitex Negundo and Careya arborea for fomentations. A warm infusion is given as a sudorific in catarrhal affections, cold it is considered to be diuretic and emmenagogue. Marathi: Nimurdi—. 5. Blumea lacera DC. occurs throughout the plains of India, from the north-west ascending to 2,o00 ft. in the Himalaya, to Travancore and Singapore. It is a common roadside weed in Ceylon and Malaya. It is distributed to the Malay Islands, Australia, China, and tropical Africa. The plant is described by Ayurvedists as hot, pungent, and bitter ; antipyretic; good for bronchitis, diseases of the blood, fevers, thirst, and burning sensations. The root kept in the mouth is said to cure diseases of the mouth. In the Konkan the plant is used to drive away fleas and other insects. It is prescribed as an antiscorbutic in West Africa. The root mixed with black pepper is given in cholera. The expressed juice of the leaves is used as an anthelmintic, febrifuge, astringent, and diuretic; mixed with black pepper, it is given in bleeding piles. drabic: WKamafitus—; Bengal: Burasuksung, Kukurmuta, Kukursunga— ; Bombay: Nimurdi—; Burma: Maiyagan—; Deccan: Divarimulli, Janglikasni, Janglimulli— ; Golungo Alto: Quitoco antiscorbutico—; Gujerati: Kalhar, Kok- arunda, Filo kapurio—; Hindi: Janglimuli, Kakronda, Kukkurbanda—,; Konkan : Numurdi—; La Reunion: Lastron batard—; Malay: Lumai hitam—; Marathi: Bhamurda, Kukurbanda—; Mundari: Marangkuru—; Porebunder: Kapurio, Pilichanchadamari— ; Sanskrit: Iwukkuradru, Wukundara, Mriduchhada, Suks- hmapatra, Tamrachuda—; Yamuil: WKattumullangi, Narakkarandai—; Telugu: Advimulangi, IKarupogaku—. 6. Blumea myriocephala DC. is found in the Sikkim Himalaya at an altitude of 2,000 [t., in Assam, Chittagong, Sylhet, and Burma. It occurs in the mountain forests of the Malay Peninsula. The leaves are used as a sudorific in Indo-China; they are given in bronchitis and in aphthae. Indo-China: Xang song, Nuong song—. BOLTONIA. The genus consists of 12 North American and North subtropical Asiatic species. Boltonia indica Benth. is found in the Khakyen Hills of Upper Burma. It extends to China and the Malay Islands. In Indo-China the plant is considered tonic, stomachic, and antipyretic. Indo-China: Hai nhi cuc—. THE MEDICINAL AND POISONOUS COMPOSITES OF INDIA 631 CALENDULA. The genus includes 15 species, natives of Central Europe and the Mediterranean region, as far as India, the Canaries; cultivated and naturalised elsewhere. Ligules sulphur-coloured; achenes all curved, marginal dorsally echinate beaked, inner dorsally muricate Bela Cm aruensts. Ligules many, bright orange yellow; achenes all curved boat-shaped dorsally muricate not beaked, outer larger ventrally crested scarcely beaked ... bee 2. C. officinalis. 1. Calendula arvensis Linn. is a doubtful native of India; found in Kashmir; distributed over Western Asia and Southern Europe; naturalised in South America, Australia and Japan. The plant is used medicinally in Spain; the leaves are considered sudorific; the flowers are reputed stimulant, antispasmodic, and emmenagogue. Catalan: Galdirons, Llevagat, Llevamal, Llevamans—; French: Petit souci, Souci des champs, Souci des vignes—; Malta: Field Marygold, Calendula, Calta, Fior-rancio, Sutfeira—; Spanish: Calendula silvestre, Flor de cada mes, Mara- villa silvestre, Yerba del podador—. 2. Calendula officinalis Linn. is a native of the Mediterranean introduced in India and run wild. It is found in the fields of Punjab and Sind, extending to Afghanistan and westwards to South Europe. The plant is signally valued for healing wounds, ulcers, burns, and other breaches of the skin surface; it is a precious vulnerary. The dried florets are vulnerary, antiemetic, bitter tonic, febrifuge, anthelmintic, and stimulant to wounds and ulcers. The plant, especially its flowers, was used on a large scale by the American surgeons to treat wounds and injuries sustained during the last civil war, and obtained their warmest commendation. It quite prevented all exhausting suppurative discharges and drainings. In Europe the herb is chiefiy used as a local remedy. Its action is stimulant and diaphoretic. Given internally, it assists local action and prevents suppuration. The infusion of one ounce to a pint of boiling water is given internally, in doses of a tablespoonful, and externally as a local application. It is useful in chronic ulcer, varicose veins, etc. The plant was formerly considered to have much value as an aperient and detergent in visceral obstructions and jaundice. The leaves, eaten as a salad, have been considered useful in the scrofula of children. The expressed juice has been given in cases of costiveness and proved very efficacious. Snuffed up the nose it excites sneezing and a discharge of mucus from the head. It has also been found useful as an extirpator of warts. It has been asserted that a flower, rubbed on the affected part, is an admirable remedy for the pain and swelling caused by the sting of a wasp or bee. NATURAL’ HIST. SOCIEILY. Volk XL The oil extracted from the seeds is used medicinally in the Punjab as a dressing for bad ulcers and as a remedy for itch. English: Wild Safflower—; Hindi: Kantiari, Karar, Kharara, Poli, Polian— ; Iraq: Kassub asfar, Suffair, Summaina—. 3. Carthamus tinctorius Linn. is cultivated throughout a large part of India, Afghanistan, Persia, Syria, Egypt, and Southern Europe. . This plant is the Kusumbha of Sanskrit writers, a well known Hindu medicinal drug. Mahomedan writers too ascribe many virtues to the plant. The action of the flowers is laxative and diaphoretic. In domestic practice these flowers are used in children’s and infants’ complaints— measles, fevers, and eruptive skin complaints. An infusion is made of $ oz. of the flowers to a pint of boiling water taken warm to produce perspiration. - In China and Indo-China the flowers are given in dysmenorrhoea and paralysis as a tonic and emmenagogue. In the Philippine Islands they are employed as a cure for jaundice. The powdered seeds made into a poultice, are used to allay inflammation of the womb after childbirth. In Sind they are em- ployed as a cooling medicine; they are sometimes boiled and made into a gruel. They are considered to be diuretic and tonic by the natives of the Punjab. In China and Indo-China they are reputed purgative. Koman in Madras administered a decoction (1 in 20) of the powdered seeds to cases of constipation. The action was very mild, and in the majority of cases it did not produce the desired effect. The oil from the seeds is considered a mild purgative in Sind. It is used as a dressing for bad ulcers, and as a liniment in rheu- matism. In Bengal it is considered by the ryots as a valuable remedy for “itch: a cure 1s ‘said to be, effected: alter threemtomsics applications. The charred oil is used for healing sores and for rheumatism; as a veterinary medicine it occasionally: finds use in healing sores on cattle. The young green plant is said to be very efficacious in colds; it is believed to keep the system warm. Saflower, in combination with other drugs, is prescribed for scorpion sting; but Caius and Mhaskar have experimentally shown that it is not an antidote to scorpion venom. Arabic: Akhariza, Bazr-el-abris, Hab-ul-asfar, Hariz, Kirtum, Kurtum., ’Usfar, Za’faran—; Bengal: Kajirah, Kusamphul, Kusum, Kusumbha—; Bombay: Kardai, Karophi, Kusumba—; Burma: Heboo, Hshu, Su, Suban, Supan—; Canarese: Kossumba, Kusambe, Kusumba—; Catalan: Safra bort, Safranéd—; Chinese: Hong Hoa, Hong Lan Hoa, Hung Lan Hua—; Cutch: Kusumba—; Dutch: Basterd Saffraan, Wilde saffraan—; Deccan: Kusumb—; Kgypt: Gartoom, Kurtim, Osfar, Oortom—; English: African Saffron, American Saffron, Bastard Saffron, Dyer’s Saffron, Fake Saffron, Parrot Seed, Safflower, Wild Saffron—; French: Carthame, Cnique, Safran batard, Safran d’Allemagne, Safranon, Carthame des teinturiers, Safran faux—; German: Gartensafran, Falschesafran, Farberdistel, Safflor, Wildersafran—; Greek: Atractos, Atractylis, Knikos—; Guilan: Tokhme-Kafisheh, Tukm-i-kajrah, Tukm-i-kazirah—; Gujerati: Karada, Kusumbo—; Hamadan: Kaufsha, Oushon—; Hindi: Barre, Karrah, Kasumba, Kussum, Kusumba—; Indo-China: Daccam, Hong hoa, THE MEDICINAL AND. POISONOUS COMPOSITES OF INDIA 633 Hong lam hoa, Rum—; Iraq: Qurtum—; Ilalian: Cartamo, Croco ortense, Zafferano saracinesco, Zaffrone—; Nonkani : Kusbo—; Languedoc: Grano de perrouquet— ; Malaya: Hong fah, Hsi hung hua, Hung hua, Hung lan hua, Sai hong fah—; Malayalam: Chendurakam—; Malta: Bastard Saffron, Zaffer- anone, Ghosfor—; Manipur: Galapmachu—; Marathi: Kadaya, Kararhi, Kardai, Kasdi, Kurdi, Sadhi—; Mauritius: Carthame, Safran batard—; North- Western Provinces: Barre, Kar—; Oceania: Kassoumbo—; Pampangan: Cachumba, Casubha, Castumba—,; Persian: Gulekafshah, Gulemaskar, Kasak- danah, Kazhirah, Muasfir, Quortum—; Philippines: Azafran de la_ tierra Portuguese: Acafrao, Cartamo—; Punjab: Kar Karar, Kasumbha, Kurtam, Kusam, Kushumbha, Ma, Safir—; Rajputana: Bundi—; Roumanian: Brandusa de tvamna—; Russian: Saflor—; Sanskrit: Agnishikha, Gramya- kunkuma, Kamalottara, Kamlottama, Kukkutashikha, Kusumbha, Lohita, Maharajana, Padmottara, Papaka, Pita, Rakta, Vanishikha, Vasraranjana— ; Sind: IKhoimbo, Quortum—; Spanish: Alazor, Azafran bastardo, Azafran romi, Azafranillo de Mejico, Azafranillo de papagayos—; Sudan: Essfar, Kurtum—; Swedish: Saffler—; Syria: Kashni—; Tagalog: Biri, Casabha, Casubha, Castumba, Catsumba, Lago—; Tamil: Chendurukam, Kusumba, Sendurgam— ; Telugu: Agnisikha, Kushumba, Kusumbha—; Turkish: Kantawaras—; Urdu: Karha, Kusum—; Uruguay: Azafran bastardo, Azafran falso—; Visayan: Casabha—. . 5] CENTAUREA. The genus includes 600 species, mostly natives of the Mediter- ranean region, Central Europe and Western Asia, with a few North and South American and one Australian. The Centaurea are immi- grants from the west into India and, except perhaps for C. tberica Stev. and C. phyllocephala Boiss. are visitors rather than even denizens. GC. calewvapa tann...cC. Centaurnim Linn., C. cyanus Linn:, C. jagea Linn., C. montana Linn. are used medicinally in Europe; Grrbenen Linn. im Persia; C: alexandrina Del., C. praecox Oliv. and Hiern., C. rhizocephala Oliv. and Hiern. in West Africa. C. solstitialis Linn. is reputed poisonous to live stock when mature. A. Flowers blue 2. C. cyanus. B. Flowers purple or pink, very rarely white. 1. Involucral bracts with narrow membranous margins terminating in a long strong spreading spine with short lateral ones at its base a die ike 2. Involucral bracts ovate-rotund and _ oblong, herb- aceous, cucullate with hyaline tomentose mem- brane abi on oe: peta ge (Cn PGI IS. 1. Centaurea caicitrapa Linn. is found in the Punjab and Kashmir, ascending to 3,500 ft. It also occurs in Mysore. It extends to Asia Minor, Central and South Europe, North and Tropical Africa. The Arabs apply the bruised leaves to the head in cephalalgia. In Europe the powdered root has long been considered a cure for fistula and gravel, and the seeds are made into powder and drunk in wine as a remedy for stone. Arabic: Morrer, Shok-—; Catalan: Cart estrellat, Floravia, Herba espitlera— ; English: Star Thistle—; French: Centaurée chausse-trappe, Chardon étoilé, Chausse-trappe—; German: Flockenblume, Sterndistel, Sternflockenblume— ; Italian: Calcatrepo, Calcatreppo, Calcatreppola, Calcatrippa, Ipofesto, Ippof- resto—; Malta: Caltrops, Star-thistle, Calcatreppola, Ippofestco—; Spanish: Abrojos, Cardo estrellado, Trepacaballos encarnado—, C. calettrapa. 636 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol, XLI 2. Centaurea cyanus Linn. is found in corn fields and cultivated places of North-West India. It is distributed to the Caucasus and westwards to the Atlantic. The florets are mildly astringent. A water distilled from them was formerly in repute for weak eyes; it was famous in France under the name of Eau de Casse-lunettes. Quoth Culpepper: ‘The powder or dried leaves of the blue- bottle, or cornflower is given with good success to those that are bruised by a fall, or have broken a vein inwardly, and void much blood dat the mouth’. In modern herbal medicine the flowers are considered to have tonic, stimulant, and emmenagogue properties. Catalan: Angelets, Blauets, Blauhet, Escombrera—; Dutch: Korenbloem— ; Knglish : Bachelor’s Buttons, Blaver, Blaverole, Blawort, Blue Blawort, Blewball, Blewblow, Blueblaw, Blue-bonnets, Bluebottle, Bluebow, Blue-caps, Blue Poppy, Break-your-Spectacles, Brushes, Corn-binks, Corn Bluebottle, Corn-bottle, Corn Centaury, Cornflower, Cuckoo-hood, Hawdod, Hurt-sickle, Knobweed, Knot- weed, Loggerheads, Thumble, Witch Bell, Witches’ Thimble—; French: Aubefoin, Aubifoin, Aubiton, Aubitou, Barbeau, Barbot, Bavéolle, Blavelle, Blavéole, Blaverolle, Blavet, Blaveolo, Blavetta, Blavette, Bleuet, Bluet, Bluet des moissons, Boufa, Bouffa, Carconille, Casse-lunettes, Centaurée barbeau, Centaurée bleuet, Chevalon, Chevalot, Ciano, Cornaille, Cornillat, Cornille, Courcourille, Créconille, Fleur de Zacharie, Le Chevalier, Péréole, Pérole—; German: Blaue Kornblume, Kornblume, Roggenblume, Tremse, Ziegenbein— ; Italian: Battisegola, Fiordaliso—; Roumanian: Albastrea, Dioc, Floarea griului, Ghioc, Sglavoc, Vinetea—; Russian: Vacilek, Vacilyok, Valoshky—; Spanish: Aciano, Azuleja, Azulejo, Escobilia, Flor celeste de sembrados, Flor del cielo espanol, Liebrecilla menor—. 3. Centaurea picris Pall. is found in Sind, Baluchistan, Afghani- stan, the Levant, Central and Southern Russia, Siberia, and the Altai Mounts. At Wad in Jhalawan the plant is pounded in water and used to cure worms. In Loralai it is a cure for wounds of sheep, used if wolves tear them. Brahui: Talkh kah—; Harboi Hills: Tulkha—; Loralai: Kurakh—; Wad: Talkhakao—. CENTIPEDA. The genus numbers 5 species, inhabiting Chile, Madagascar, tropical Asia, and Australia. Centipeda robicularis Lour. is found in moist places throughout the plains of India and Ceylon. It is distributed over Afghanistan, Eastern tropical Asia, Australia, and the Pacific Islands. The plant, either whole or in parts, is used medicinally in India, China, the Philippine Islands, and New South Wales. The powdered herb and the minute seeds are used as a sternutatory. The drug is administered in ozoena, headaches, and colds in the head. It is considered a hot and dry medicine, useful in paralysis, pains in the joints, and worms. The Mundas of Chota Nagpur snuff the crushed plant in fevers and colds. In the Punjab the herb is boiled to a paste and applied to the cheeks in toothache, THE MEDICINAL AND POISONOUS COMPOSITES OF INDIA 637 Vyas and Sinha have shown that the herb contains an alkaloid, a glucoside, and traces of saponin; the watery extract increases the force of contraction of the frog’s heart, prolongs the systole, and causes heart block in larger doses. Arabic: Afkar, Makandash, Uffarkakudush—; Bengal: Chhikni, Hancheta- gachha, Hanchuti, Mechitta, Nagdowana, Nakkchikni, Pachittie—; Bombay: Nagdowana, Nakkchikni, Pachittie— ; Chinese: Shih Hu Sui—; English: Sneeze- weed, Sneezewort—; Gujerat: Chhikani—; Hindi: Nagdowana, Nakchhikni, Nakkchikni, Pachittie—; Indo-China: Co the, .Thach ho tuy—; Malaya: Chikkana, Chhikika, Chu tsao, E tai shih, O tai shih, Pe kong chau, Shih u sui, Yoo pak seek—; Marathi: Nakashikani, Narasinkani—; Mundari: Acuara, Acusing—; New South Wales: Sneezeweed—; Persian: Gawejahan—; Sanskrit: Chhikkani, Chhikkika, Ghranadukhada, Kruranasa, Kshavaka, Kshavakrita, Sanvedanapatu, Tikshna, Ugra, Ugragandha—; Santal: Bediachim—; Sind: Afkar—; Tagalog: WHarangan—; Urdu: Nakachhikani—; Victoria: Guk- wenderuk—; Visayan: Harangan, Pissic—. CENTRATHERUM. The genus consists of 15 tropical species, mostly Asiatic, with four American and one Australian. Centratherum anthelminticum O. Ktze. (=Vernonia anthel- mintica Willd.) is found throughout India and Ceylon, often cultivated. The plant, roasted in a room, or powdered and thrown about the floor, is believed to expel fleas. The juice of the leaves is given to cure phlegmatic discharges from the nostrils. In Hindu medicine the seeds have long been esteemed as one of the principal remedies for white leprosy and other skin diseases. The drug is powdered with an equal quantity of black sesamum, and a drachm of the powder is taken in the morning with tepid water after perspiration has been induced by exercise or exposure to the sun; the diet should consist of milk and rice, In leucoderma a decoction of emblic myrobalans and catechu is given with the powdered drug. Externally the seeds are used in skin diseases in a variety of forms, such as powder, paste, oil, infusion, juice. On the Malabar Coast an infusion of the seeds is given for coughs and against flatulency. In Travancore the bruised seeds, ground up to a paste with lime juice, are largely employed as a means of destroying lice. In the Konkan the seeds enter into the composition of a popular antiperiodic powder. In the Punjab they are considered febrifuge ; they are also given in anasarca, and used for plasters for abscesses. In Ceylon they are recommended for fever convulsions. European doctors practising in India consider the seeds a valuable tonic, stomachic, and diuretic. The seeds are considered as powerfully anthelmintic in South India, and are also an ingredient of a compound powder prescribed in snake bites. The author of the Makhzan-el-Adwiya says that the seeds are given internally to remove phlegm and worms from the intestines, 638° JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL iSite SOCIETY) SVole scien and that a poultice or plaster is used to disperse cold tumours. He concludes by stating that the drug is not often prescribed internally, as it is thought to have injurious effects, but that it is much used as a cattle medicine. The seeds are used instead of quinine by the ‘Mundas of Chota Nagpur. In paralysis of the legs the powdered seeds are applied externally. When the stomach of cattle swells, the powdered seeds are mixed in equal quantity with salt and soot from the fireplace. This is dissolved in water with the addition of two capsules of Spanish pepper, and given as a drink. Wrench. (1919), Caius and Mhaskar (1923) have reported un- favourably of the seeds in the treatment of hookworm infection. There is conflict of opinions as to the value of the seeds in the expulsion of roundworms; not only in the past, but also in more recent times. Whilst Koman (1919-20) finds the seeds to possess considerable ascaricidal properties, Caius and Mhaskar (1923) report very unsatisfactory results. The seeds contain a rather large quantity of resin. This was tried in a number of cases of helminthic infections at the Carmichael Hospital for Tropical Diseases, Calcutta. It appears to have very little effect on the ascaris. It is, however, distinctly effective in threadworms infections. In several children to whom the resin powder was administered, threadworms were expelled in the stools in large numbers and the symptoms which are often very trouble- some, such as nocturnal enuresis and grinding of the teeth, were relieved. Mhaskar and Caius have shown experimentally that the seeds are not an antidote to either snake or scorpion venom. 7 Arabic: Atar-i-lal, Itr-i-lal, Kamun-e-bari—; Bengal: Babchi, Bapchi, Bukshi, Hakuch, Kaliziri, Somraj—; Bombay: WKalenjiri, Kalijiri—; Canarese : Kadujirage, Kadujirige, Kalajirige, Sahadevi—; Deccan: Kalajira, Kalijiri, Karviziri— ;_ English: Purple Fleabane, Wild Cumin—; French: Herbe aux mouches—; Gujerati: WKadvojiri, Kalijiri—m; Hindi: Bakshi, Bukshi, Kalijhiri, Kaliziri, Somraj, Vapchi—; Kumaon: Kalijiri—; Malayalam: Kalajirakam, Kattasiragam, Kattujirakam, Puvankuruntala—; Marathi: Kalajira Kalenjiri, Kalijiri, Karalye, Ranachajire—; Mundari: Warigiri, Karijiri, Karijuri, Piriti- judiring, Saoraj—; Persian: Atarilal, Itrilal—; Porebunder: Kalijiri—; Punjab: Bukoki, Kakshama, Kalazira, Kaliziri, Malwabakshi—; Sanskrit: Agnibija, Aranyajiraka, Avalguja, Atavijiraka, Brihanyali, Kana, Kananajiraka, Krishna- phala, Kshudrapatra, Putiphali, Sahadevi, Somaraji, Tiktajiraka, Vakushi, Vanajiraka—; Sinhalese: Sanninaegam, Sanninasang, Sanninavan—; Tamil: Katchiragam, Kattuchiragam, Neychitti, Nirnochi, Sittilai—; Telugu: Adavi- jilakatta, Garitikamma, Nelavavili, Vishakantakamulu—; Tulu: Kalajrdari— ; Urdu: Janglijiri—; Uriva: Somraj—. CHRYSANTHEMUM. The genus includes 180 species, natives of the northern hemisphere. The following are used medicinally in Europe—C. Balsamita Linn., C. cinerariaefolium Vis., C. Leucanthemum Linn., C. Par- thenium Bernh., C. vulgare Bernh.—; in Persia—C. Marschallii Aschers—; in China—C. coronarium Linn., C. Decaisneanum Max., C. indicum Linn., C. sinense Sab.—; in Indo-China—C. indicum THE MEDICINAL AND POISONOUS COMPOSITES OF INDIA ~ 639 -Linn., C. sinense Sab.—; in North America Vis., C. Leucanthemum Linn. Annual ae ite a. a Vite. i AT . de - ; 7 H - - rt . : ‘i te a F ” 1 ti & a i JourN. BomBay Nat. Hist. Soc. Photo by M,N. Bakshi. The Yellow Elder or Trumpet-Flower (Tecoma stans (Linn.) H.B.K.), New Forest, Dehra Dun. SOME BEAUTIFUL INDIAN CLIMBERS AND SHRUBS 683 KEY TO THE SPECIES. Shrubs ee be et ne male Stans: Climbers Stamens exserted ae BS ee o.2. eapensts. Stamens included. Flowers scarlet or orange; climbing by aerial rootlets. Leaflets 9-11, pubescent beneath, at least on the midrib; calyx teeth short avs Re ane sul © Vadicans. Leaflets 7-9, glabrous beneath; calyx 5-lobed to middle ...T. grandiflora Flowers white, yellowish or pink, climbing without aerial rcotiets. Corolla 1.5-2 in. long ust he i D.asminoides. Corolla .5-75 in. long Sat ae wo le australes. Tecoma stans (Linn.) H. B. K. The Yellow Elder; Trumpet-Flower. | (The specific name means ‘erect’ in Latin). Bs pe : 23 ‘ Pig. 1.--Tecoma stans (Linn.) H.B.K. x8. 684 JOURNAL, BOMBAY: NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY,.Vol. XLI Description.—A large shrub sometimes reaching the size of a small tree. The leaves are opposite, compound and odd-pinnate, Boe sha, long. Leaflets opposite, 5-11. in number, ovate, ovate- oblong to lanceolate in shape, 1-4 in, long, acuminate, sharply serrate, sessile or nearly so. The new leaves are a beautiful glossy green but the foliage looks very: tired after a cold winter and dry hot weather. It is usual in older trees to see a profusion of erect shoots from the base of the stem. These shoots bear flowers. The flowers are borne in large terminal panicles and are fragrant. Calyx cup-shaped with 5 narrow lobes, glabrous or sparsely covered with:.short crisp hairs, .2-.3 in. long. Corolla gamopetalous, of a beautiful yellow-gold colour, contracted to a narrow tube at the base, expanding above the calyx into an irregular funnel with five wavy lobes. Stamens four fertile; one rudimentary, included inside the corolla tube. This is the usual arrangement but one often finds only three fertile stamens and one unfertile anther on a filament only half the normal length. The anthers are widely divergent from the apex and the connective is crowned with a small foliaceous limb. The ovary is seated in a cupular disk which is wavy on the margin. The style is long and filiform and divides at the apex into 2 stigmatic lobes. The capsule is linear, 6-g in. long, com- pressed, green, turning brown at maturity, and contains numerous seeds, each with. 2 large thin wings. The eastern and southern sides of a bush flower first and by the time the pods have replaced the flowers, the northern and western aspects flower. Flowers.—Practically throughout the year. The capsules are produced during the cold weather and remain hanging for a long time on the plant. | Distribution.—Native of Tropical America.. Very common in gardens in the plains throughout India. It is also found in the hills up to 5,000 ft. Gardening.—This species grows exceedingly well in our gardens and flowers profusely. Owing to its rapid growth and dense foliage down to the ground, the ‘yellow elder’ is highly valued as a screen for unsightly objects. It ripens its seeds so abundantly that hundreds of seedlings come up self-sown around old plants. Easily raised from seeds sown in March. Tecoma stans (L.) H. B. K. var. incisa Hort. is a form in which the leaflets are narrow and are cut almost to the midrib. ) 7y. . F ‘ ye ° 5 Purl, W. Thibet, a short way beyond, where’ it is apparently not rare. It may turn up on the Shipki Pass. 182 Polyommatus astrarche, Bergstrasser. A fairly common butterfly from March until after the rains, it may be taken from the plains up to at least the height of Jakko, 8,000’, in open sunny places. 183. *“Polyommatus pheretes ijehana, Moore. Not uncommon over 12,000. We have specimens from the Shipki neigh- bourhood and the Baspa Valley taixen in July. 184. **Polyommatus omphisa, Moore. A. fairly common butterfly of the higher hills above about 10,000’. Speci- mens from the Jalori Pass in July. 185. **Polyommatus metallica metallica, Felder. A butterfly that may be taken above about 9,500’. Common in the Shipki neighbourhood in July. Also taken on Ganasi Dhar, 9,800’, in July. 186. Polyommatus galathea galathea, Blanchard. Not uncommon in the inner hills above about 10,500’ in July. I also have a worn specimen taken as near to Simla as Sungri at 11,000’ in September. 187. **Polyommatus orbitulus ellisi, de Nicéville. A rare blue of the inner hills. We have had it from Shipki and the S. W. borders of Thibet in July. 188. Polyommatus eros ariana, Moore. Fairly common in the Shipki neighbourhood above about 8,000’ in July. A Polyommatus which seems to be mid-way between ariana and dux may be taken in the country between Mattiana and Sungri after the rains. Above 9,500 it is by no means uncommon. . 189. Chilades laius laius, Cramer. May be taken from spring to autumn at the foot of the hills wherever the lime tree grows. We have records from Kalka and Chandigarh in October but it does not seem to be particularly common at that season. We have-no records of its being taken further into the hills. 190. ‘Zizeeria trochilus trochilus, Freyer. A fairly common butterfly at low elevations though likely to be overlooked on account of its minute size. It may be taken throughout the year in rough grass country such as all Zizeeria like. It can be caught up to 7,000’ though it is not common at that altitude. I have caught it at 6,900’ in Simla in October and November and have seen it at 5,500’ in February. 191. Zizeeria maha maha, Kollar. During the warmer months of the year this is a very common butterfly at low elevations. Above 4,000’ it is common only from July to October though specimens may occasionally be caught before the rains, 734 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL CEST TS OClE DY a Viol ein 192. Zizeeria lysimon, Hubner. Fairly common at low elevations between April and = October, it may be caught not uncommonly about the end of October up to 7,000’. 193. *Zizeeria gaika, Trimen. May be taken occasionally at low elevations between April and October. We have a specimen from Chaba, 3,000’, in September and one from Simla, 6,000’, 20-9-39. 194. Euchrysops cnejus, Fabricius. Like other members of this genus it will be caught in meadow country and about hedges and bushes. At low elevations it is common from Aprii to October. It can be taken up to 8,500’ and in Simla it is by no means un- common in Septeniber and October. . 195. **Euchrysops contracta contracta, Butler. Two specimens taken at B.C.P.S., 6,800’, 1-5-39 and 9-5-39 are the only records we have of the appearance of this butterfly in our district. It is more likely to be caught at plains level. 196. tEuchrysops pandava pandava, Horsfield. Not very common at the foot of the hills, rare in Simla. We have captures from Chaba and Simla in September. 197. Catachrysops strabo, Fabricius. Common in the plains and foothills but scarce in Simia, though it may be taken up to 10,000’... The season for this insect is July to October in Simla ‘and February to late October at lower elevations. In Simla it is commoner after the rains. 198. Lampides boeticus, Linnaeus. Very common to at least 10,000’. In Simla it may be taken from. February to late November. 199. *Jamides bochus bochus, Cramer. One specimen from Naldera, 6,500’, 27-9-37. No other record. One would expect to find this insect at low elevations in damp nullahs and flying round bushes, etc. 200. *Nacaduba nora nora, Felder. This year I have taken about a dozen of these insects in the compound here, 6,800’, on different dates between the end -of April and the beginning of the rains, so that one may presumably say that it is common even at this height. It is a very unobtrusive insect and so possibly escapes notice. At lower elevations it is doubtless commoner and inay be taken from early spring to late autumn. Here it may be taken again after the rains. It will not be found much above 7,000’. 201. Lycaena pavana, Kollar. Very common early spring to late autumn, from about 5,000’, in open, sunny places. 202. Lycaena phioeas indicus, Evans. 203. Lycaena phloeas flavens, Ford. Very common early spring to late autumn; indicus will be found above about 5,000’, and flavens in the inner ranges Shipki way, though intermediate specimens will be found in the country between. 204. Lycaena kasyapa, Moore. We have no records of this butterfly having been taken any nearer than Lahoul and Shipki in July, although de Nicéviile mentions a capture on the Thibet Road near Simla. It may be found in the Bagi country above 8,000’ in open places in the forest in the summer, j | ! | A List On Shy BUT REREPERES JO fie SIMEA. HIELS 735 205. Heliophorus sena, Jsollar. Very common anywhere the sorrel plant grows... from about 4,000’ to 8,000’. Early spring to October. 206. Heliophorus oda, Hewitson. This beautiful little blue is rather local and will not often be taken below about 7,500’, though I once took a very worn female in a nullah below B.C.S. at 5,400’, in late March. It may be taken in fair numbers in the San Damiano nullah between about the roth of May and the ist of June. The bushes at the roadside between the rest-house and the bazaar at Kufri are another profitable locality. On June 4th I found it common flying around the bushes beside the mule track on Ganasi Dhar, 9,800’. Heliophorus bakeri, Evans. This has not yet been taken in the district, but it 1s included on the grounds that, though Evans gives its locality as Chitral... Dalhousie, it has since been taken in Nepal. It would be taken in similar places to oda, which it resembles. 207. Heliophorus androcles coruscans, Moore. A rather uncommon butterfly that may be taken in the nullahs on the Mahasu ridge, on Kufri Hill and in Simla in June and September. 208. *Strymon sassanides, Kollar. An uncommon butterfly of the inner hills. Specimen from Spiti at 12,000’, in July. 209. *Euaspa milionia, Hewitson. A distinctly rare little butterfly. It will be taken in damp nullahs just before the rains. Specimens from the nullah just below the Walker Hospital 5°6., the Glen 24:5., and the nullah between Chota Simla and the Convent. 210. Thecla icana, Moore. Members of this genus are generally caught in. nullahs and glades in forest country. Very occasionally icana may be taken on Kufri Hill, on the Jalori Pass and in the Narkanda.. . Bagi country where in places it is not rare. I have taken specimens on the road between Bagi and Khadrala in September among swarms of Thecla syla. This, I should imagine, is as good a spot as any for this insect. It flies in August and just after the rains. 211. Thecla bieti dohertyi, de Nicéville. May be caught in the same localities and at the same seasons as the last. Round Narkanda ‘it is not particularly uncommon. 212. Thecla ataxus ataxus, Doubleday. A rare butterfly. We have taken it in the San Damiano Nullah and in the nullah between Chota Simla and the Convent at the end of May. 213. Thecla birupa, Moore. Simla is the western limit of this butterfly and it is rare here. We have had it in the nullah between Chota Simla and the Convent, 7,000’, and in the nullahs on the north-western slopes of Tara Devi. It has also been taken on Kufri Hill. It has been observed flying round holly trees. 214. Thecla sylta syla, Kollar. A very common insect in damp nullahs and glades wherever there are oak trees above about 7,000%. It will be taken from early May until the rains and again directly after them. 215. Chaetoprocta odata, Hewitson. Is common round walnut trees in early June. It may be taken from about 4,500. up to the Chini district. 136 JOURNALS BOMBAY NATURAL HIST.” SOCIETY Voleexrt 216. *Curetis acuta dentata, Moore. Rare in our district and most likely to be taken in the lower valleys, though I caught a female on May the twenty-third of 1938 in the compound here, 6,800... Specimens from Chaba in October, and Koti in September. 217. Iraota timoleon timoleon, Stoll. Rare in this district. Several specimens taken in early June at 6,000’. Specimens; female, Chaba 3,000° . . . male, Summerhill 6,500. . . male, Simla, 6,000’. Mainly a low elevation insect. ; 218. **Amblypodia alemon, de Nicéville. One specimen taken in early June in the San Damiano Nullah, 7,500’. This will be the western limit of this butterfly’s range and it will be very rare. 219, Amblypodia dodonea, Moore. 220. Ambiypodia rama rama, Kollar. 221. Amblypodia ganesa ganesa, Moore. These three butterflies may be caught from early May until the rains and again in August until late October. They are very common, especially before the rains, in damp nullahs in oak forest. 222, Surendra quercetorum quercetorum, Moore. Rare. We have several specimens taken 31-7., Koti, 3,000. It is a low elevation butterfly and will be talen in jungle country. 223. Apharitis lilacinus, Moore. Rather an uncommon butterfly that will be taken at the foot of the hills. We have several specimens taken at Chandigarh in “April and October. It seems to have a liking for gram fields. 224. Spindasis vulcanus vulcanus, I abricius. Not uncommon in the lower hills and the plains at their foot. At low elevations it may be caught from March to July and again after the rains. It will also occasionally be taken in Simla and even up to Mashobra, just before the rains and in October. 225. “*Spindasis ictis ictis, Hewitson. Rather uncommon in the plains and it does not extend into the hills. Specimens from Chandigarh between March. and July and in October. 226. Spindasis elima uniformis, Moore. De Rhé Philipe mentions a capture on the Chail ridge in June. No other information. 227. Spindasis nipalicus nipalicus, Moore. Not particularly uncommon in the -plains and foothills of our district, it may occasionally be taken round Simla. Specimens :—two 26°5, 6,000, in the nullah below the Grand Hotel, ... one at the end of May taken in the Glen, 6,000’, . . . one in September from Chaba. 228. Pratapa icetas icetas, Hewitson. A rare butterfly that will be taken in wooded country up to about 8,500’. It has been taken on Kufri Hill and we have records from Chadwick Falls, 6,500", and Simla, 7,000’, all at the beginning of June. It is mainly a low elevation butterfly. 229 **Pratapa cleobis, Godman. Very rare. This is the extreme western limit of its area. It is a low elevation butterfly and we have a specimen from Chaba, 3,000’, 22-10. 230. **Tajuria diaeus, Hewitson. Simla is also the western limit of this butterfly and it will be very rare. Also a low elevation insect. Specimens from the Glen, 6,090’, and Tutikandi, 6,500’, in May. Se eee A LISH OF Site BULEEREEIES® (OF LEE SIMLA HILES 737 231. *Tajuria cippus cippus, labricius. Mainly a butterfly of the eastern Himalayas and Burma, it is rare here and will mostly be caught at low elevations. All our specimens have been taken after the rains. Chaba, 3,000", 22-9... Elysium Spur, 7,000’, 3:9 . Simla, 6,000’, 12:10. 232. Horaga onyx onyx, Moore. A rare insect that may occasionally be taken from low elevations up to 7,000, Shortly before the rains and in September. Specimens :—B.C.P.S., 6,800’, 22-5-38 . . . Near Junga, 4,000’, May ... Chaba, 3,000/, September. Horaga viola, Moore. A rare species that extends from Kangra to Kumaon. No record of its capture. 233. Deudoryx epijarbas ancus, Fruhstorfer. Not uncommon in June and July, it will often be taken settling on flowers. It should be looked for also where the pomegranate grows as the larvae feed inside the fruit. At this altitude, however, the larvae feed inside the horse- chestnut. 234. **Virachola isocrates, Fabricius. A rare insect at this height, it is more likely to be taken at low altitudes in May, September and October in the neighbourhood of guava _ plantations. Specimens from Chaba, 3,000’, in May, Koti, 3,000’, in September, and a perfect female at B.C.P.S., 6,800/, 20-10-38. 235. Virachola perse perse, Hewitson. Its range is given as Kangra to Burma. [t must be very rare and we have no record of it apart from de Rhé Philipe’s mention of a capture some- where near Kalka. Guava plantations at lower altitudes are the most likely places to take it. Rapala varuna grisea, Moore. Recorded limits, Kangra to Kumaon. No records. 236. **Rapala schistacea, Moore. A rare insect and the only one that we know of that has been caught in our region is one taken for me on buddleia blossoms at B.C.S., 6,500’, in the middle of June. It is more likely to be caught at low elevations. 237. *Rapala melampus, Cramer. Rather uncommon, it may be taken from plains level to 10,000’, just before the rains and in September and October. 238. Rapala nissa nissa, Kollar. The only representative of this genus in our area that is common. It will be found from the end of April until just after the beginning of the rains. It is partial to damp nullahs and is also to be found flying round bushes and settling on flowers. 239. Rapala micans Selira, Moore. Usually not a common insect but this year it was to be had in plenty. I caught as many as I needed flying round flowers in the compound here, and saw a number of others about bushes between the Dhali filter beds and Mashobra, and settling on damp ground in the San Damiano nullah. It will be taken from the beginning to the end of May from about 5,500’ to 8,500’. 240. **Rapala extensa, Evans. One specimen from Spiti, 12,000’, in August. This is rather far east for this butterfly. 738 JOURNAL, (BOMBAY NATURAL “HEST.3SOGIE TY, 1 Vol. eed 241. *Sinthusa chandrana chandrana, Moore. A rare butterfly that will be taken in late May and June above about 4,500. Records from the Junga neighbourhood at 4,500’ and 5,000/, 30°5 and 15°6. Sinthusa nasaka pallidior, Fruhstorfer. Given by Evans as extending from Kangra to Kumaon. No record. HESPERIIDAE. 242. 1Hasora alexis alexis, Fabricius. One of the commoner of our skippers, I have frequently taken it settling on buddleia flowers between late June and September. It will be found from plains level to 7,000’. 243. **Ismene jaina jaina, Moore. This is the western extreme for this butterfly so it is very rare. It will not be caught much above 3,500’ and our only records are of one or two that were taken near Chaba at 3,000’, 5:9. 244. *Bibasis sena Sena, Moore. Again this is the western edge of this butterfly’s limits. It is uncommon throughout its range and anyone who catches it in our area is very fortunate. Like the last-mentioned species it is a low elevation butterfly. One record from Chaba, 3,000’, at the same date as the last. 245. +{Choaspes benjaminii xanthropogon, Kollar. This fine insect is a rarity here and is most likely to be taken at this altitude from the beginning of May to June. We have records from the San .Damiano nullah, 14°5, and the Chadwick Falls nullah 25:5; de Rhe’ Philipe also mentions having taken it at Koti in June. It is worth noting that, though it flies in the early morning, it does not do so exclusively, the first two mentioned specimens being caught at about mid-day. It ranges from fairly low elevations to about 8,000’. 246. Badamia excilamationis, Fabricius. Not uncommon from the plains up to about 7,000’. Up here it will be seen from late June till August. I have caught all my specimens on buddleia blossom. 247. *Ceiaenorrhinus pulomaya, Moore. Very rare here. One specimen from WKalka taken in May at 2,000’. 248. Celaenorrhinus leucocera leucocera, Kollar. One of the commoner skippers about Simla, it may be caught from about 4,000’ to 8,000’ from April to July. It seems to prefer damp, shady places and most of my specimens have been caught near water on bushes. Shamri nullah in April and May is usually a good spot for this butterfly. - 249. *Celaenorrhinus munda, Moore. We have no reliable record of the appearance of this butterfly within our limits. It is very similar to leucocera and might easily be mistaken for it in flight. I have one specimen in my collection. This is a relic of an old school collection that was handed over to me when I first arrived here and the insect in question bore unmistakable signs of having been set by a boy... so it most probably was caught in the neighbourhood of the school. . .this is the nearest approach to any record we have got. 250. *Achatarus bifasciatus casyapa, Moore. A rare butterfly that may occasionally be caught above about 6,000’. We have two records of insects taken in June, one on the Elysium Hill at 6,700’ and the other in the nullah below the old toll bar on the Mashobra road, ATES. OF, THE BUTTERFLIES OF THE VSIMLA HILLS 739 251. Tagiades menaka, Moore. Not particularly uncommon in damp shady nullahs during May and June from low elevations to about 7,000’. It is given to settling flat on the under- sides of leaves which makes it rather difficult to spot. I have also caught it on flowers. Chadwick Falls is a good neighbourhood for taking it and I have also seen it in the nullah between Chota Simla and the Convent. 252. **Tagiades litigiosa litigiosa, Moore. May be taken in the same places and at the same seasons as the last- mentioned which it greatly resembles. However, it is a much less common insect. Recorded from the nullah below the Grand Hotel, 6,000’, October, and Chadwick Falls nullah, 6,000/, April. 253. Cotadenia dan fatih, Kollar. Not uncommon from the plains up to about 7,000/. It likes damp, shady places but it also comes to flowers in gardens. Late June, July and August is the season in Simla, but we have specimens taken in September and October at 3,000. 254. *Sarangesa purendra, Moore. 255. Sarangesa dasahara dasahara, Moore. These are two unobtrusive little insects that are likely to be overlooked. Their home is the scrubby jungle country at the foot of the hills, though they may be taken in open, grassy country up to 7,000’. Neither of them is at all common though purendra would seem to be the commoner of the two. We have taken at dasahara B.C.P.S., 6,800’, 30-4-39 and another at a low elevation in October. We have taken purendra from July to October up to 6,500’. 256. *Odontoptilum angulata sura, Felder. An uncommon butterfly in these parts, it is mainly an inhabitant of the lower regions, though it has been caught on Kufri Hill at 8,000’. Season: spring and autumn. Specimens: Kufri Hill, 8,000’, in June; Chaba, 3,000’, in September. 257. Syrichthus galba, Fabricius. Flies from spring to autumn in the grassy country at the foot of the hills but is not at all common in this part of India. It penetrates the lower valleys up to about 5,000’. Specimens: Chaba, 3,000’ in September; Kalka, 2,000’, in October; Shalogra, 4,000’ in July; Shamri Nullah, 4,900’ in October. 258. *Aeromachus stigmata, Moore. An undistinguished-looking little skipper that is rare here. It seems to keep to damp nullahs and flies before and after the rains. Records: Chadwick Falls nullah, 6,000’, 10°6; near Junga Bridge, 4,500’, in September; below the settling tanks on the Chota Simla... Kasumpti stream in July and September. Pedestes masuriensis, de Nicéville. Recorded between Kulu and Assam. No records. 259. Suastus gremius gremius, Fabricius. Fairly common at low elevations after the rains, probably in the neigh- bourhood of palm trees, .it may be taken occasionally up to 7,000’. Records: Simla, 7,000’, and Chandigarh, 2,000’, both in October. 260. Udaspes folus, Cramer. A largish, striking-looking skipper that is found from the plains up to about 7,000%. It is not common and flies in April and May. I have noticed it settling on dung. 261. Notocrypta feisthamelii alysos, Moore. A local insect. Once the right spot has been found plenty may be taken. This year I found them in good numbers in the nullah between Chota Simla and the Convent where I caught a number of specimens, I noticed them 740 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XEi also about the same time in the San Damiano nullah. This was during. the third and fourth weeks of May, but they can also be caught in July and after the rains, though less commonly. They seem to like flying in the shade in nullahs where there is water, but they also come to flowers occasionally. They are very difficult to see in flight but they have a habit of settling on stones to which they return time and time again. iret : Roahes waledk Hyarotis adrastus praba, Moore. Range: Kangra to Burma. No record. A low elevation insect. 262. “*Actinor radians, Moore. . Hes, Jeger Rare throughout its range. Flies from about 2,000’ to 5,000’. Specimens from Chandigarh, 2,000’, in October and Kulu, 4,500’, in August. 263. Taractrocera danna, Moore. A common little insect in open, grassy country from the Mahasu ridge well into the hills. It does not often come below 7,000’ and I have noticed numbers of them settling in the dust on the Hindustan . . . Thibet road beyond Mattiana. Season from early May until about the end of June. 264. *Taractrocera maevius sagara, Moore. Not uncommon below about 5,000’ in: the same sort of country as the last. It will appear during most of the warmer months. We have had it from Kalka, 2,000’, in April. 235. Padraona dara, Kollar. Flies about bushes and flowers. Not rare above 6,000° from May to October. 266. **Padraona cato clio, nov. Fairly common below 6,000’. It is very similar in appearance to the last- mentioned and its habits and seasons are the same. We have it from Chaba, 3,000’, in August and September. 267. **Astycus augias augias, Linnaeus. Very rare here. One specimen from Chandigarh, 2,000’, in October. Pamphita comma indicofusca, Verity. Pamphila comma dimila, Moore. Two high elevation insects about which we have no information. The yrange of the former is given as Chitral to Kumaon, and the latter as Bashahr to Kumaon. 268. **Baoris eltola, Hewitson. Not uncommon from about 5,500’ well into the hills to about 10,500. Like other members of the genus it is given to settling on flowers. It may be caught in’ May, September, October and occasionally during the rains. 269. Baoris discreta himalaya, Evans. A hill species that does not seem to be at all common here. Records -from Simla at 6,500’ in March and. at 6,000’ in July. pies: WWE Looe 270. Baoris sinensis sinensis, Mab. Not rare. We have records of specimens caught in mid-April, June and July all at 7,000’ and I believe it is a post-monsoon species as well. Mahasu is reputed to be a good spot for this insect. ay 271. *Baoris mathias mathias, Fabricius. A low elevation skipper which is fairly common in the Kalka.. . Chandigarh and Chaba districts. Our specimens are dated September and October but it will be on the wing during most of the warmer months of the year, , 272. Baoris guttatus guttatus, Bremer, Aeris OFotin BUTTER ELIES OF THE SIMEA HILLS 741 273. Baoris guttatus bada, Moore. The hill form, guttatus guttatus, will be found well into the hills... I have had it at Sungri, 8,500’. It is quite common in September and October when it will often be seen darting about flowers. Bada the low elevation form, will be caught at the same season up to 7,000’ but it is not nearly as common. We have specimens taken in Simla at 7,000’ in September and October. 274. Baoris zelleri cinnara, Wallace. We have no record of this species ourselves, but de Rhé Philipe mentions having caught one in Simla. It is more likely to be taken in the Kalka country. 275. Baoris bevani bevani, Moore. Quite common from the plains up to 7,000’, it appears in April and early May round Simla but will be caught after the rains at low elevations... we have it from Chaba, 3,000’, in September. I have caught it settling on mud. in Shamri Nullah and also flying about flowers in the garden here. 276. *Gegenes nostradamus karsana, Moore. Not common but will occasionally be caught at low elevations during and alter the rains. Specimens from Chaba, 3,000’, and Koti, 3,000/, in July, August and September. ADDENDA LYCAENIDAE. 277. “‘Zizeeria otis otis, Fabricius. Common up to 7,000’ at the end of October and beginning of .November. NyYMPHALIDAE. 278. *Neptis narayana narayana, Moore. A rare and very local insect which is out for a short time just before the rains. It may be caught in the nullah between Chota, Simla and the Convent and I have seen it near Theog, mile 20/5, Tibet road. A REPTILE AND AMPHIBIAN MISCELLANY, BY CHARLES MCCANN, F.L.S. ParT I (With 9 plates and 3 text-figures). INTRODUCTION. This paper is an attempt at grouping together in a presentable form many of my notes and field observations on Reptiles and Amphibians. It covers a period of many years of intermittent field study. Much of the information relates to animals met with in the vicinity of the islands of Bombay and Salsette, but observations made further afield have also been incorporated. Whenever possible, an endeavour has been made to record the findings photographically. HIBERNATION AND AESTIVATION. It is well known that the temperature of reptiles varies with the temperature of the atmosphere and also its humidity. The fluctuation of the climatic conditions increases or retards activity ; thus it is that we find that certain animals ‘disappear’ during certain seasons and ‘reappear’ at others. In the case of lizards, for example, heat is responsible for greater activity, except when too severe; while cold on the other hand, retards their activity and forces them to seek shelter. Amphibious animals, such as crocodiles, turtles and frogs, are less influenced by atmospheric changes, and are largely dependent on water supply; but land tortoises react in the same way as lizards to atmospheric conditions. Frogs are dependant on water supply and humidity of the air, hence it is we find that most frogs aestivate during the dry weather but some move about during this period under the cover of darkness when evaporation is low. Frogs can stand a good deal more cold, provided it is not dry, than lizards. REPRODUCTIVE ORGANS. In the female, a pair of ovaries is present and both become functional only during the breeding season. The mass of embryonic eggs, when visible, appear as small creamy, spherical bodies situated near the middle of the body on either side of the vertebral column. The number of ova varies considerably in the different families and in some instances with the species, from but a few in the Hemi- dactyls, to several hundred in many of the Ranids. In the breed- ing season the ova exhibit all stages of development, from the microscopical to the mature. The ova that do not mature in anv- A REPTILE AND AMPHIBIAN MISCELLANY 743 one season undergo a process of resorption as in the case of birds, and the whole genital system undergoes complete reduction, often making it really difficult to sex an animal from a casual survey. During the breeding season, the whole oviduct is in a state of hypertrophic turgescence, i.e. it is much enlarged. This condition is clearly seen in the photograph illustrating the difference between the breeding and non-breeding condition of the ovaries in the Marsh Crocodile (Pl. Il). The genitals of immature, non-breeding animals also show a certain amount of enlargement during the general breed- ing season, but not, by any means, to the same extent as those of breeding animals. This is well illustrated in the photograph of the Bull-Frogs (R. tigrina) which appears in part II of this paper. In the non-breeding period the genitals are so reduced, that in many cases, it is dificult indeed to sex a specimen. Like the ovaries the male organs are paired and both become functional during the breeding season. The seminal ducts lead into the cloaca. In crocodiles, turtles and tortoises there is a single extrusible copulatory organ; in lizards and snakes it is a paired process; while in frogs and toads no such organ exists. Fertilization is external in frogs and toads and generally takes place in water. ORDER: LORICATA. FAMILY: Crocodilidae. Crocodilus palustris Lesson. The Marsh Crocodile or Muggar. The Marsh Crocodile (C.palustris) I have met in several parts of its range: in Sind, along the banks of the Indus River and canals, and also in some of the lakes; in the United Provinces, in the marshes of the Gola (Kheri Dist.); in Rajputana, along the bed of the Banas River; and in the Bombay Presidency—Tapti River, Salsette Island, and the Kala Nuddi, Kanara. I have also visited the famous ‘Muggar Pir’, near Karachi, where the animals are kept in a-small area enclosed by a wall. In spite of its size, the muggar is an extremely shy animal whose senses of hearing, sight and smell are highly developed; it is difficult of approach, and only a ‘sleeping’ individual may some- times be taken by surprise. Though, generally speaking, the muggar is an inhabitant of sweetwater, in the. lakes near Tatta, Sind, it is found in water so saline as to be undrinkable. The hillsides bordering some of these lakes show distinct traces of ‘crocodile paths’ leading up from the water. I followed up some of these; the ascent was often steep, with a lot of loose sand and stones. The ‘paths’ invariably terminated in a large deep hole in the hillside, evidently the work of a crocodile. The entrance was often two feet or more in diameter. The burrow descended for some 8-15 feet terminating in a large chamber, sufficiently wide to allow the animal to turn round and lie comfortably. In cone, or the burrows a ten-foot crocodile was at home! Though an _ un- sporting thing to do, I shot the beast. Being June, the usual breeding season, I examined the burrow for eggs, but there were none. It would appear that these burrows are just retreats in which the animals spend the hottest part of the day. 744. JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XLi When hit by the first bullet, the brute lashed out furiously with its tail and created an awful dust within the burrow, at the same time ‘roaring’ loudly. The noise can only be compared to the roll of a big-drum. Apart from this sound, muggar hiss loudly and make a clapping noise by snapping the jaws together. When cornered they face the enemy with open mouth, the tail ready to strike, and the snapping is often repeated. When attacking, they may Jump slightly forward (more true of the young) with the mouth open in an endeavour to bite, or they may bring the tail round with a powerful sweep towards the head, and the head moved inwards towards the tail. When an object is gripped between the powerful jaws it is ‘dusted’ by vigorous shaking of the head. While sailing down the Indus towards the sea from Baggarh, I often saw large numbers of these huge reptiles lying on the muddy banks, and presenting the appearance of a timber curing yard; there must have been well over a hundred in some places, baskiny in the sun, motionless, yet ever ready to plunge into the river on the slightest suspicion of danger. They were seen at all hours of the day. Once I had the opportunity of seeing one make a meal. As our boat passed close to the bank, I noticed the water was much disturbed in the shallows. Suddenly, out jumped a fish about two feet long on to the bank. No sooner had this happened, than a crocodile broke the surface and followed the fish to the bank, caught it, swallowed it—head first, and then dis- appeared into the river. In the Gola, Kheri District, crocodiles are numerous in the swamps. The marshes, during the cold season, form large expanses of water surrounded by tall grass, often twelve feet or more high. On the banks crocodiles make definite paths to the spots where they le up. In such places one may scmetimes surprise a ‘crock’. Its first impulse on the slightest sign of danger is to get back into the water and disappear, only to show the top of its head some distance off as it drifts gently away without causing a ripple. The marshes are also the home of Swamp Deer and Pythons; and during the winter months they are visited by hundreds of duck and other wild fowl. In this area the crocodiles probably feed largely on wild fowl and Swamp Deer. In the Banas river (Rajputana), which is dry for several months of the year soon after the rains, the crocodiles tenant some otf the large and deep pools left along the bed of the river and some of the permanent pools in the neighbourhood. During floods they travel a long way up and down stream. The Fauna’, with regard to the basking of crocodiles states: ‘They do not leave the water until the sun is well up, and return to it before the sun has set.’ My experience is that they come out much at night. I have shot them at all hours of the night on banks with the aid of a torch. In the Bombay Municipal lakes of Tulsi, Vihar and Powai on the island of Salsette, crocodiles are frequently seen. In these areas I have found them lying upon the banks both during the day and during the night. I, .B. Ind. (Reptitha), vol.a, p. 361031, endedn, (é) ft aye] ising, ‘z ‘yoynpo sures oy} jo suaunoeds epueyg ‘9g ‘S “bh ‘1 ‘uOSssa’T Siaysnjpd snjipor0dg ‘UUDIDIT, *“Q 20104 Ht inpirengp (ioe eft es SRL So 00S “JSIT “IUN Avquiog ‘‘usnoge ‘uosvasS SUIPseIq 94} Je S[e}lUes VAT}Oe-UOU puUe JAIJIV UdIMJoq BIUBIEYIP oYy1 Surmoys ‘(uossa’] Ssi4ysnjog SnjpiporosD) erpos0jg yYssey ay} JO suiaysks [ejiues apeway ‘UUDDIWY °D 2 0104 I] d1ivIg "00S ‘JSIET “JUN Avquog ‘‘uanoe A REPTILE AND AMPHIBIAN MISCELLANY 74) Or This crocodile is a very nasty-tempered reptile; even after weeks and months of captivity it still remains savage. All attempts to ‘tame’ them generally resulted in a lacerated finger or hand, though they recognised well the feeding time and the food and readily came for it, but any attempt at familiarity was immediately resented. When in water the food is easily caught and swallowed, but pick- ing food off the floor is a difficult process as the meat has to be seized with the side of the jaws. Young.—Recently I had the opportunity of examining four preserved specimens of hatching crocodiles sent in to the Society by the Divisional Forest: Officer of North Chanda, Central Pro- vinees: Two of .the. four specimens were half out of the egg, one out, and one stiil in the egg. ‘Two of the eggs measured 79X50 mm. and 80X50 mm. Hes gone and the hatchling 294 mm. from: tip of snout to tip of tail (over the back). The same animal measured with dividers, from. tip of snout to vent 118 mm., from vent to tip of tail 132 mm. (=250 mm.). The latter measurement agrees with that given-in the Faunu (p. 48). Besides the Chanda specimens there are a few small specimens in the society’s. collection; of these only one has still its egg-tooth. This specimen measured 283 mm. over the back. All the Chanda specimens exhibit the egg-tooth clearly. The egg-tooth is a small wedge-shaped calcareous point attached to the rostrum shield. The egg is invariably ruptured at one of its poles. Big: 1.—Egg-tooth of Crocodilus palustris. A. & B. lateral and front view of egg-tooth on the rostrum. C. & D. outline of egg-tooth. © 746 jOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL. HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XLI Breeding.—Crocodiles breed regularly in the municipal lakes in Salsette Island. On the 2oth April 1940 Mr. Humayun Ali gave me three eggs which had been taken about a week previously. These eggs were fairly new. On the 3rd May 1939 Mr. Ali brought me two specimens shot by him in the Powai Lake, Salsette. One measured 6 ft: 4 in., the other 5 ft: 4 im, both females. )Dissec: tion clearly showed that the former was just entering on the breed- ing season. The ovaries were considerably enlarged and contained some large ova, while the oviducts had become considerably dis- tended and elongated, obvious indications that the animal was about to breed. The other, on the other hand, showed no signs of genital activity; the ovaries and oviducts were small and un- developed (Pl. II). On the 13 June (1940) I shot two specimens, oné a female, measuring Oft. 54 in., and the otheria male 4 it.7o. im. Examination of the genitals indicated that the female had laid eggs some time back. The ovaries were undergoing resorption and contained no large ova. The oviducts, though still considerably enlarged, were now contracting. The genitals of the male were still immature. Does this then give us the approximate size at which the females of this species reach sexual maturity? Fig. 2.—Copulatory organ of Crocodilus palustvis Lesson, Grewth.—Gadow! referring to the age at which crocodiles become sexually mature writes: ‘They are capable of propagation long before they are anything like half-grown, may be at the age of little more than ten years’. If this observation is correct, and if we accept the average annual growth (Fauna, p. 35), a sexually mature animal should measure approximately 100 inches (=8 ft. 4 in). In the present instance the animal is only 6 ft. 4 in., estimating its age by the same standard of growth, it would be only 7} years — tad * Cam. Nat. Hist, Series (Aniphibia and Reptilia) p. 448. Journ., Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. Piate ITI Photo: C. McCann. A gravid Pond Turtle [Lissemys punctata granosa (Schoepff.) ] E. eggs; Re. Ruptured eggs; Od. Oviduct. | A REPTILE AND AMPHIBIAN: MISCELLANY VEYA old. However, with reptiles, I think, it is perhaps better to arrive at the size at which they breed rather than place any reliance on age. The very young generally leave the lakes and live in the neigh- bouring pools and streams during the rains, but return to the lakes when the water in the surrounding country dries up. Hocd.— Ane VOMime, XxXxvAll,, ps 409 Of the, Journal J. referred: to the diet of the Salsette Crocodiles. In Salsette these animals appear to feed largely on aquatic beetles, Cybister spp., Hydrophyllus spp., such fish as they can catch, and the giant water-bug, Belastoma indica Sep. et Serv. To this must be added numerous snails. The process of digestion devolves on numerous small stones, some of them as much as an inch in diameter, which are always present in the stomach. An examination of the stomach contents of the two animals shot on the 13 June revealed that the stomach of the laksen One was empty except for a number of stones. Im the smaller there was an entire carp (Barbus chrysopoma Cuv. & Val.) about to in. long, in a partially decomposed state and a complement of stones. The size of the stones apparently vary with the size of the animals. The larger beast contained stones some of which were ‘slightly over an inch in diameter, while those in the stomach of the smaller, barely exceeding half an inch. ORDER: TESTUDINES: Tortoises, Turtles and Terapins. Famity: Trionychidae: Soft-shelled Turtles. Lissemys punctata granosa (Schoepff.). The Pond Turtle. During the rains both the adults and young of the Pond Turtle (L. p. granosa) often cover considerable distances at night moving from one tank to another. Though the gait on land is far from graceful, this animal can travel comparatively fast. Flooded fields are often halfway stops. The young appear in fields and small pools later in the season. On the night of the 5th August 1937 my cook brought me a. large female, which had wandered into our compound at Andheri, Salsette. The carapace measured 212X149. mm., plastron 200X160 mm. (The plastron was measured after its removal, flat.). The turtle was evidently on its way from one tank to another. The two closest tanks to my bungalow, one to the west and the other to the north, are about a mile and three-quarters of a mile respectively. This meant that the animal would have had to travel approximately two miles. When captured it was unhurt and showed no signs of injury. I placed it along with some other tortoises in a wire enclosure. Next morning, to my surprise, the animal was in a precarious condition, and it died a couple of hours later. On dissection it was found to be gravid. It contained ten eggs, the three largest of which had burst, the contents over- flowing the body cavity. It had evidently climbed up the mesh of the enclosure in an effort to escape, and dropped down several times with this fatal result. Numerous other ova at various stages of development were present in the ovaries, the largest of these measuring 24 mm. in diameter. The oviducts were considerably dilated but contained no eggs. 748. JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XLT Eggs.—This species is accredited with laying 10-12 eggs at one time, but there appears to be the possibility that further clutches are laid by the same individual at different intervals, as indicated by the presence of a ‘surplus’ number of eggs. This, however, is a mere surmise, because we know that in the case of ‘birds ‘surplus’ ova are absorbed during the non-breeding season. The eggs are spherical and hard-shelled. They are laid in soft mud not far below the surface. The time of deposition has not been definitely ascertained, but the newly hatched turtles appear late during the season. The eggs are presumably laid and hatched dur- ing the rains. On March 28, 1939 Rev. T. Williams of Balaghat District sent a couple of eggs of the Pond Turtle for identification. Referring to the circumstances under which they were found Rev. Williams wrote, ‘A few days ago while having some earth dug out of the tank close to my bungalow a clutch of eight eggs was un- earthed by the coolies.” The eggs seemed to be quite fresh as there were no signs of incubation or decomposition. One of the eggs measured 28 mm. across, the other was broken. Growlh.—Growth is, at first, fairly rapid, and newly hatched young are not seen alter thewams, (As the poolsidiy, the youn wander to larger and more lasting expanses of water which only dry up in the hot weather or a little before, so that the aestivating period in many instances is not a long one. Turtles do not aesti- vate when water is perennial, and under such conditions are often seen basking on rocks and vegetation, but on the slightest sus- picion of danger disappear into the water. Food.—The food of this turtle consists mostly of frogs and water plants, in fact one may safely say it is omnivorous. In captivity the animals feed readily on raw meat and bread. The food is held in the mouth and torn to bits by the sharp claws. During the process, both forelegs are brought up together to bear upon the food, sometimes alternately. Vhough generally voracious feeders, they are able to survive considerable periods of starvation. One JI kad in captivity refused food for nearly two years after it had been captured. After this long period, the animal, which had been living in a water tank, died. Externally it showed barely any signs of its long fast, but when dissected it was surprising to find that it was ‘full of water’! Most of the muscles had dwindled to shadows and the alimentary canal was but a thin membrane filled with water too! In passing, the following examples of reptiles surviving without food may be of interest. A Checkered Water- Snake [Natrix piscator (Linn.)| which went on hunger strike and kept at it, survived ten months. An Earth Boa [Eryx johnii (Boie) | went one better than his aquatic brother. The Boa was a good healthy specimen which had been in captivity a few years—perhaps two or three. It was kept fasting for eighteen months, at the end of which it was somewhat emaciated, but as the test had lasted long enough the animal was given small mice and rats. Gradually it returned to normal and lived for another three years. General.—-Not far from my bungalow a well was being dug on a site formally occupied by a water-tap. The surroundings were slushy. About six inches below the surface a pickaxe pierced the A REPTILE AND AMPHIBIAN MISCELLANY 749 carapace of a Pond Turtle which was aestivating there! This took place in the month of April. The flesh of the Pond Turtle is eaten by the East Indians and Goans, and animals are often seen in the bazaars exposed for sale. ORDER : SQUAMATA. SUBORDER : SAURIA. Famity. Gekkonidae: The Geckos. This group of lizards is perhaps the most familiar of all in India, some of the species are found in almost every Indian household and there are numerous quaint superstitious beliefs attending to them. Geckoes are commonly referred to as Fly-catchers or House- lizards—-general terms with neither generic nor specific value. House- lizards in different districts are not always the same, while many species found in houses are also found far from habitations on trees and rocks. Poisonous Geckoes.—Iin India many geckoes are regarded as poisonous. Some are even said to be identical with the mythical Bis-cobra. Not only their bite, but mere contact with their excre- tions is believed to be attended with fatal results. The truth is that if geckoes were in any way poisonous this paper would not have been written. Nevertheless, like all superstitions the Pozsonous Gecko will die hard. Owing to these beliefs, geckoes are often killed. On the contrary, they should be encouraged in the house, as without either injury to persons or property they feed on insects many of which are harmful. Eggs.—-Usually only two eggs are laid at a time. These are slightly agglutinated together and to the surface they are laid on. In shape they are generally spherical and are covered with a fragile, calcareous shell. The size varies greatly from species to species anc there is also a slight difference between those laid by individuals of the same species. The presence of smailer eggs in the ovary together with the developed pair, suggests that perhaps more than one clutch is laid by the same individual at different intervals. This mav explain the presence of half-developed eggs in Hemidactylus brook: obtained on the roth May by which time the general breeding season is nearing its close (Salsette). Egg-tooth.—The rupture of the egg in geckoes may sometimes be described as ‘circumscissile’ (i.e. splitting along the equatorial line), but this is not always true, the shell more often breaks up irregularly. Referring to this Dr. Malcolm Smith’ writes :— ‘For the rupture of the shell the embryo is provided with a sharp calcareous egg-tooth at the extreme tip of the mouth. This is shed shortly after birth. - In the Geckoes the tooth is double, but in all lizards, so far as’ is known, it is single.’ Mr. Mahendra? observes that there is no egg-tooth in_ the case of H. flaviviridis. My observations agree with those of Dr. Smith, viz., the egg-tooth is present and is double. The ege~ . tooth in geckoes is composed of two pear-shaped bodies which tp. B. Ind: (Reptilia), vol, 41; p. 5, 2nd edn. (1935). 2 Proc, Ind, Ac, Se., vol, iv (1936). 700 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL “HmST. SOCIERY.§ Vol. rl only protrude very slightly from under the upper ‘lip’. If casually looked for they are barely visible, but if the mouth of a newly hatched young is examined, the two bodies are clearly seen. A pocket lens is not always sufficient to verify this point definitely. Territorial rights.—Territorial rights are preserved at all seasons, but when food is abundant, particularly in the neighbourhood of lights, several lizards may be seen feeding in close proximity. During the breeding season in some cases I have observed a certain grouping of individuals within definite limits. Intruders are vigor- ously chased out of the area. The same diurnal retreat is occupied day after day, and unless the animal is frequently disturbed it will not change its place. Colour-markings. Colour in’ geckoes, as with many _ other lizards, I have found to be a very unreliable character, and accord- ingly, from a diagnostic point of view, has little, if any, importance. There may be ‘definite’ markings, often seen in preserved speci- mens, and certain colour characteristics in the young, but in life these markings may or may not be present. Perhaps an exception to this ‘rule’ is seen in H. maculatus. It has very characteristic markings, both in life and in the preserved state. Here again the markings tend to disappear when the animal becomes very dark in general tone; the blotches merge into the surrounding hue, but when the lighter tones are assumed the markings stand out very prominently. H. maculatus does not appear to be able to dim the series of blotches to any great extent. Whether by day or by night, I have always found that Hemidactyls simulate the colour- ing of the surface they are on at the time. Colour change is imperceptibly gradual. Fragility of Tail. The fragility of the tail in geckoes 1s well known. In the first place, the tail is used (in some species) as a store for reserve food material. Well-fed lizards develop a thick basal portion which in some species becomes annulated, but gener- ally, after the ‘winter sleep’ is very lean. In the second, it is used as an evasive device, when detached, forming a distraction to the enemy as it actively wriggles about for quite a long time after being severed, while the lizard itself makes its escape—a tail for a life! There is a limit to the point at which a tail may be detached. In males the last point of detachment is usually one segment below the termination of the pockets of the hemipenes, but in females it is a little higher up. Generally it is about 2-3 segments below its union with the body. The tail is soon rejuv- enated and may become as long as the original, but the scaling and colouration is quite different from the original. Injury to the original may result in bifurcation at the point of injury, but at times two or even three new tails may be formed at the point of severance. By injection of a fluid into a fresh tail I was able to break it up at various points. Eyes.—The dilation of the pupil appears to be controlled by the activity of the animal. Even in bright lamp-light the pupils remain wide open or but slightly closed, the eyes appearing quite black, instead of having the characteristic slit. A similar condition I have observed in the Chunam Frog (Rhacophorus maculatus). Journ,, Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. bi ee 26 te & a 3s baa £e 38 4 us 3 te £3 4B bis ae Photo: The Rock Gecko (Hemidactylus maculatus Smith). (Top row females; bottom row males). (Ge PLATE McCann. IV A REPTILE. AND AMPHIBIAN MISCELLANY 751 Hemidactylus maculatus Smith. The Rock Gecko. This gecko, one of the largest Indian. Hemidactyls, shows a predilection for rough surfaces and is generally found in caves and rock crevices. It is common in the Kanari Caves, Salsette, but I have not observed it elsewhere in the island. At Panchgani (4,000 ft.), where the majority of the houses are built of blocks of laterite, this lizard is the common ‘House Gecko’, living chiefly on the unsurfaced exteriors of the buildings, but it also frequents the internal walls, particularly during the rains. During the day it retires into cracks or under the roofs. At Panchgani, on two occasions only, I have found this lizard on trees; once an immature one, on the stem of a Silver Oak among Ivy quite close to a bungalow; and another on the ‘fluted’ stem of a Ficus near a street lamp. Perhaps the more abundant food, attracted by the light, occasioned the ‘unusual’ situation, though in the case of the former instance no light was near the tree. Breeding season.—In Salsette, the general breeding season coin- cides with that of the other species present in the area, i.e. between February and April. The sexes appear to live together. In the Kanari caves, Mr. H. Ali and I collected them in March (1939), generally in couples; however, in one cave there were three females together and in another a single immature male. Immaturity appears to be outwardly indicated by the strong, very characteristic banding of the terminal third of the tail; but a rejuvenated tail does not show the markings. The young born in one year are just a little smaller than full adults at the next breeding season. Evidently they do not breed till the second season after birth. During the Easter holidays of 1939 (9-13th April) I visited Panch- gani with the express purpose of collecting further specimens in breeding condition. Having secured H. maculatus in full breeding condition in Salsette, I expected to find the Panchgani in- dividuals in much the same condition, but dissection soon dispelled this notion. The Panchgani lizards were just at the beginning of their breeding season. The reproductive organs in both sexes were small when compared with those of the Salsette specimens. This variation in the time of the breeding season may perhaps be ex- plained by, (a) the altitude and consequently cooler nocturnal tem- perature; (b) the food supply, a very serious factor on the dry hills of the Deccan. If young were hatched before the rains they would obtain but little food. Therefore I am of the opinion that the Panchgani individuals breed later in the year. On the whole the Panchgani specimens were much more emaciated in appearance than the Salsette ones. A further point of interest which is coin- cident with the later breeding season, is that, at Panchgani im- mature (half-grown) individuals were far more common than in Salsette, this possibly is a result of later breeding and_ scantier food supply. Eggs.—A pair caught in the Kanari Caves, on the 12th March (1939) were kept in a box. On the 20th two eggs measuring tgX16.mm. were laid. They were slightly glued to the surface, and proved to be sterile, (YW) £8 L6 Teas | sto ee = } “op = (oC + ‘0d ‘op (xq) LIL TH * CLUE ¢ a) see eee AS ‘op see ‘0g ee ‘od = ‘op (xD) 66 OOT eco nee e0e eee o) ‘op eve ‘od ces “Od 4 ‘op (x1) 16 TOL soe eee cee ase 5 ‘op seo ‘od [eee ‘0d ws ‘op 66 LL nee shai wee arora & ‘op Ari) ‘od ines ‘0d res ‘op (x) 6/ QL deve ese AGH aiete & ‘op Sap "0d | ° ‘0d & ‘op 08 $9 eee see | see eee as ‘op see ‘0d Nek “od ‘op 66 6.08 oe teal at ie 4 ‘op ae ‘od be ‘od > ‘op ZO Ig anere oveid | auets wate & ‘op ries ‘Od fa ‘od = "pa}oossTp JON c6 OL oe | 3} ‘op = 10 a "od ae ‘oinosqo | | | S aoe | poyoassip JON) ae e/ ste sere | ane 61 +8I 2 ‘op don al |e ‘od a) "payoessiP JON (aq) €or S-Z0T is ols Wee 665 COD ea mee OCT fe Gh (a) FOr aa a me xGP | 6E+6I | & (Oper. aod eae OG - | (a) 8S FOr a ce Cove OlS lal ce OOK ti. Aenol Ph ae < | 30) We SOR. it ee 2xg | 6t+6r | P (6e6Lsteseq| esyourq | ‘od a "po}o9sstp JON | IST Bil ee es v < 02* 61 oe “op a ‘0d ye ‘od ] (a) P21 1A een ON, hea ees OS0Te sats Ob a ‘Op a “0d ee eG = | 9EL Ge an = 9X8 6T + oT ra ‘Op is ‘od ies Od SI ‘d/VW SUIpss1q-uoT | PLL 88 a pa poyiodury | gf + OT Y ‘Op stat ‘0d le ‘0d = GE-E-02 | | | < wuo sé6a Z pley, | i Wa }oos sap 10N $21 OTT eee coe rec ae 5 ‘op ree ‘og [see ‘0d Dy (a) 16 cot 6 GtZ at i } Moye as OG. tee Od = (a) Fer 801 l faa é HOD = OG (a era = "JSnpIAO | CG Ul s68a les1e7] | | FG X [I $889 JoT[VUG Let 60L | SIx6L | §+2 ey } ODN gia ‘od fae ‘0d . t (a) 29 Or TL Coins ac sa & | G€6I-E-ZI J ISL enesteg 7 SugDpNovUE = ‘SOABD oes snpAjgppmUMaey me ; | | | | mD ae JUOA S834 Soe: =| sSoisdy,= |< ; 8 SYIEULIY j!@} Jo dt} 0} JuZA, 0) moug] Jo azig | jo ‘ON | jo zig | SO10g | xO 910q | Ayeoo'7T | saroedg “SaajawyyUe Ut snzoinovWU snjkjovpimapy fo Sjuawasnsvafy 7 MISCELLANY AMPHIBIAN AND {EGE VIO EID, A *payeuaanior = Y ‘AyrAvo Apoq 9Ujj UT [[s pue [ewolioyds a1 $859 9} SO]VOIPUL oINSY [SUIS WV "$859 JO[[VUIS 94} PUOSES oY} ‘S689 SULIN} VU JO IOQUINU OY} So}VOIpPUL 9INSY IsIy OL, x +e *peonper | | 4 AIoA [vyiues ‘ane 90T Z6 pe ee, OG, slay eral p “op ne “oO me ‘od ‘psonpel speyiue+) (XT) 98 90T a So) SCS a Sie en ‘op a zeal pe "0g "P9}OISsSIP JON (HI) Er vot te en ies Poles ae ‘Op os Gl ¢s hal *(uotjzdto0sa1) | | | uolonpeal Ssur0s | | -Jopun = SB} U4) (1) FIT SIL | [eug Ce al ey ae 6 | 6861-9-8 [°° “ISL eeSsTeS | | | ‘soared eue sy)" ‘od | | Le 16 eee 5 ‘op ae erat es ‘od coe 26 . | eee aoe coe ; O i "op see “OG Vas ‘0d (7) ZOL R0T | sae | eee aoe } j ‘op eee ‘0d es ‘od (aq) ia ZOL | ene see eee ooo } ‘op aoe "0d ee core | (a) SOL pOL | ST+8l | x “Op see ‘od | 0d (a) 16 Io 3 : Pade 3} ‘Op my OG les ‘0d (a) $6 80i € tile 0 a "Op - 0G Med "od (I) PZ elt “wur¢e | 8+0 3} (oP ae “od wa ‘0d (a) FOr Sil mele a0) 3} OD egal ae od (UW) Il Sere 5 ZL +0 i i ye ee aT a “OC Measurements of Hemidactylus maculatus in millimeters. St Species | Locality Date Sex | Pores aie or | eee | ee spouse Vent to tip of tail Remarks S = —————$———_—_—— ———— - = Se —__—_————_— ————— ] — S Hemidactylus Kanari_ Caves, | | | = maculatus .... Salsette Isl. ...] 12-3-1939 | @ oe 0 #242 fi 104 62 (R) t | : Do. =a Do. on do. 2 tee O32 24+3 9x15 109 127 |Smallereggs1l1=9, & Larger eggs in 2 | ovidust. =e Do. a Do. orx| do. iy 3 7 108 | 124(R) = Do. e To. do. | 2 9 102 | 91 (R) mR Do. on Do. oa do. | 2 aes 116 | «24 |Not dissected. 4 | Laid 2 eggs on == 20-3-39 3 Do, on Do. = do. da 16416 | Imperfect cas ae 88 114 |non-breedingmale. 5 Do. ° Do. 2 do. & 19419 8x6 ao ce 115 136 | = Do. ea Do. oe do. | @ | 19+17]| lox6 at em 121 124 (R) o Do. at Do. do. é 19+ 20 ton | a (7d | eo. |Not dissected. = Do. .-! Panchgani ...|Easter1939) ¢ | 19-19} 5x2 Ae peallll act 108 71 (R) > Do. oma Do. sel do. ae 18+19 4<2 a ee 104 58 (R) Ss Do. on Do. do. é 19419 | 4:5x2 cn con i 1€4 (R) p Do. ne Do do, ¢ 19+19 ae O55 oo 107°5 103 (R) Not dissected. wo Do. 2 Do. ss do. ¢ |18+19 a es 74 97 |Not dissected F.P. 8 | | | obscure. S} Do. wee! Do do. Q 70 92 jNot dissected. g Do. xr Do. do Q 81 107 | do. & Doms es Do. do 2 80:5 | 99 | do. Do. Do. do 2 | 64 80 do. a Do. Do. do. Q 76 79 (R) do st Do. Do. do g 77 99. do u Do. Do. do. i) 101 91 (R) do. ie Do. Do. a do. Q oP - 100 99 (R) do. zs Do. Do. do. Q 0+8 3mm. ili 117 (R) do. Do. Dow =. do g Bs Ps 0+8 | Small 97 87 (R) Do. aaa Do. wes do. 2 0+12 3 113 113 (R} Do. = Do. sof do. 2 0+7(?) 3 118 104 (R) Do. aed Do. co do. J 0+8 |3mm. 112 74 (R) Do. oes Do. oy do. 2 0-11 3 108 95 (R) Do. x Do. ay) do. 2 “0 = 66 O08 1cé 91 (R) Do. a] Do, 5 do. a 18418 om woe ax |) es 105 (R) Do, Ps Do. on} do Q P| rod EOD a | 102 117 (R) = Do. by Do. oe do. 2 | coo tea és 110 $7 (Rj Do. oe Do. ais do. Q | | 108 102 (K) a Do. ; Do. do. 2 \ | 92 | = S Doe = Do. ac, © 91 | ll 2 Do, ...|Kanari Caves, | ; Gi | Salsette Isl. ...) 8-6-1939 | 2 } 6 Small 115 114 (R) Genitals under- = | | going reduction = | | (resorption). S Do. a Do. xed do. ¢ 17416 | a | | 1 104 | 112(R) Not dissected. = Do. 5 Do. 4 do. d 19+18 | Small | 106 | 88 (Ry Genitals reduced = Do. EI Do. “or do. a 17+17 Do. | 92 106 Juv. genital very 3 | reduced, = | = | 4 5 | a a & | & i S ea | 5 | | | | as | | | | | * The first figure indicates the number of maturing eggs, the second the smaller eggs. + Asingle figure indicates the eggs are spherical and still in the body cavity. 2 } R = rejuvenated. & XLI Vol. JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAE HIST. SOCHEDY, 754 “ABW W9T pue YisT Uo pelyo}er S88q “6-F-9T_ petsi0q ‘tidy € uo sesso z prey ‘QIGISIA ATIvalO puv IOIB[ SOS *pdjOISsIp JON ‘lidy ¢ U0 $689 Z >YoIeyY Ur jyusneg *yuads soqsoy, PIe] SYIBUIDY a ee ey ee QI) $-0z zs (HI) OF uayosy UeL C.F | eee ie OF “a SS GN) ai alar St ¢°cS ae ae Ss Oise Sitatt | eg | oSie] PHea ors SS 9 Von ’ ae 8S te ve ors 39 pS TTBUS Suge Olga x ES) a el ha SS Rea FS Ser L ES a7 cs i ; Peer Shane ¢-PS | BS VG 2 |i GeeciZ SP a PWR PA eral Otay | CP ! eee E+ Z eee eeo sg jpueqyssey, pte} —" = | TS z Q+Z aac ae ip Sa Or Micra. 9G ve | CS) ESeh < OT CT? er : | ¢-SS + §xOI Saal = xr OS LXG-6 Leu : USy e956 EC ; S-8P ee it €+Z OS 8*S-6 Gt? - ae €S TTetus é . ay ss 9x OT ET? ey 8S | ¢-9*xS-8 €+Z oe ee Apog S383 s88q | soJsayz, | solog 3% PBI) JO 9ZIS | JO*ON | JO 9Zig | Jo'ON once OFOFOLOF OF OFOFOFO0F 04040404 SO SOFOFONOOF = SCOTOt X9S CSatmlC7 a ‘od ObrGs Lk We ‘0d 6§-2-G |“ “IST. 87398TeS ‘TZaypuy 6E6T Joiseq| *"° 1UesyoUueg 6E2G50n = | ol lohemn Aaa) ons ‘0d 6estaI ee. 8G 6tatz9. 2. @ -40G 6£-Z-9 a ‘od BS=esLE 57" 9a 6£- | | | | | and clearly visible. = Hemidactylus \Andheri, | | | o frenatus ...| Salsette Isl. ... 5-2-3¢ do | 144+15! 6x3°5 52:5 40 (R) i [DOM Do. 17-2-3¢ a | 15+14 525 | 46 52 fa Doe Do. ...| 31-3-39 Q as - | os Bs 41:5 20°5 (R) | Laid 2 eggs on 3 April; © bottled 164-39. Eggs | o hatched on 15th and 16th May. Measurements of Hemidactylus spp. in millimeters. ci | eI | sex | No. of | Size of | No. of | Size of |Head&| | Species | Locality | Date Sexillspocssilllerester'| easel Mesos Body ail | Remarks | | | Hemidactylus Andheri, | me frenatus ...| Salsette Isl. ... ob | oP 175 14 Egg laid 3 April; hatched out on 16-5-39, = Hemidactylus Andheri, | | | | flaviviridis ...| Salsette Isl. ...| 5-2-1939 2 ono : 77-5 85 | 3 Do. Be Do by, |) a ‘ 75 52 (R) 5 Do, 00 Do. -| 17-2-1939 | @ - 79 65 (R) to} Do. “0D Do. «.. | 13-5-1938 | Q . 85 96°5 = Do. ne Do. ... | 17-2-1939 | 2 83 105 K Do. ant Do. «| 14-5-1938 2 81 77(R)_ | Tail bifid. =) Do. cos Do. «| 6-2-1939 2 | 84 79'S | Tail trifid, 3 eggs matu- — | | | | ring together. = Do. con Do. .-. | 20-5-1938 é 7+6 Not | 89 71°5 (R) 2S develop- = 1 _ ed | = Do. oa Do. «| 5-2-1939 Gl 747 | 7x45 65 61 (R) = Do. Do. +s | 15-4-1939 | 2 (?) = 0 30°5 32 A recent hatchling. = Do. Do. ..|_ 9-3-1939 |" ¢ | 6+6 | 6x4 54 70°5 Do. Do. are Do. | 6+6 | 9x45 | 88 58 (R) S Do. Do. ... | 164-1939 | ¢ 7+6 | 5x2 | wl 97 Testes exhausted. 4 Do. 1 an|| ie, || | 7A || 6B 5 Do. Do. on Do. 2 | 75 39 (R) S Do. Do. con Do. |e. | 76 52 (R) = Doe Do. __...| 17-4-1939 | (?) 30 31 = Do. eal Do. ... | 28-4-1939 | (?) . 5 ye || aR : ID oxy Do. Ee Se?) a = 29 32 Egg laid 1-4-1939; hatched 24-5-1939. Bottled immediately on hatching. | | a a 756 JOURNAL, BOMBAY, (NATRU RAL SEES S OCLs ailiol mein Sise.—The Fauna (Vol. 11; p. 86), gives the maximum length of this species as, ‘snout to vent 115; tail 130 mm.’ It will be seen from the table of measurements that North these sizes have been exceeded. The old males are usually larger than the females. Voice.—The only sound I have heard this lizard produce is a drawn out noise, which can be likened only to the ‘straining of a rope.’ Food.—The food consists chiefly of insects ; but one specimen contained a full-sized H. brooki—the stomach was so distended that it extended from the neighbourhood of ihe heart to the lower part Ol@the rectum. Hemidactylus brooki Gray. Brooks’ Gecko. According to the Fauna, p. 91, H. brooki is supposed to be the commonest house-gecko in India. It certainly may have fhe widest distribution, but it is certainly not the commonest ‘House- Gecko’ in all parts of the country.. In Salsette, for instance, H. brooki is very common and lives mainly in the forests, on trees, rocks and under stones. in the vicinity of human habitations, on compound walls, on the external walls of houses and in houses not already tenanted by H. flaviviridis. The latter usually hunts out the former. Breeding Season.—-In Salsette, the breeding season generally sets in with the commencement of the warm weather, about the end of February. .On the roth May (1938) I captured a gravid female at Andheri, with two half-developed eggs measuring 5°5 mm. This specimen measured: snout to vent 51 mm.; vent to tip of tail 60 mm. Another gravid specimen was caught on the 29th January (1939), containing a single egg, 9 mm., in the right oviduct and five smaller eggs in the body cavity. It measured, snout ic vent 55 mm.; tail lost. (For further details see table). In Panchgani, during the Easter holidays of 1939 (April 9-13th), I often found this gecko on the outside walls of buildings in company with (but never near) H. maculatus. At the time H. brook was in full breeding. Mr. Mahendra! referring to this species observes that at Agra it lays in July and August and not throughout the year. This later breeding at Agra is probably in keeping with the climatic conditions and the food supply. Eggs.—From a comparison of the eggs (see table) it appears that the eggs in this species remain in the body cavity till they are 6 mm. in diameter and then .enter the toviduct.- While ine the body cavity the eggs are spherical, but become longer than broad on entering the oviducts. On being laid they once more assume the spheroidal shape. Voice.—H. brooki is perhaps the most vociferous of the com- moner geckoes, but more so at the breeding season. It indulges in a loud, sharp, ‘chuck-chuck’ repeated several times, like ‘audible kisses.’ Proc, Ind, Ac, Sc. voleiv, (1636), 277. Journ., Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. Pate V es fas Brook’s Gecko (Hemidactylus brooki Gray). ; igcaice ig NR Photos: C. McCann, The Common House-Gecko (Hemidactylus flaviviridis Rippel.) Note the female with the trifid tail and three maturing eggs. PLaTE VI Journ., Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. A. R. Hughes. Hind foot of Prashad’s Gecko. (Hemidactylus prashadi Smith). Photo McCann. Rock Gecko. maculatus female and Male Smith). (Hemidactylus A REPTILE AND AMPHIBIAN MISCELLANY 859 Food.—The animal is mainly insectivorous. When not on or in houses, Brook’s gecko feeds largely near or on the ground, on grasshoppers. I have often taken specimens with a single grass- hopper completely filling and distending the stomach. Hemidactylus prashadi Smith. Prashad’s Gecko. This species was first described by Dr. Malcolm Smith in the Fauna in honour of Dr. Baini Prashad of the Indian Museum. The first specimens were obtained by Drs. Prashad and Rao at Jog, N. Kanara. While cn a visit to the Gersoppa Falls s (Jog) in com- pany with Mr. A. R. Hughes, at the break of the rains 1938 we caught nine specimens of this species living in the bungalow at the head of the Falls (British side). Others were taken on neigh- bouring trees. | Markings.—The ‘cross-bars or series of spots’ noted in the Fauna are not always seen in living specimens. Examples caught in the Bungalow, on the colour w eed walls, certainly showed these. marking very clearly; but those caught on trees showed no trace of them, they were mottled like the bark. Specimens preserved in alcohol do not all show the body marking, but on.the tail the banding is distinctly visible. In the young the ground colour is usually darker than in adults, but the white banding of the body and tail stand out prominently. Most of the young were about one-third to half-grown (June). Measurement.—Below 1 give a few measurements from the material collected:—The largest male from snout to vent 98 mm. ; vent to tip of tail 136 mm.: preano-femoral pores 32 (16+16). Whe largest female, snout to. vent 87.5 mm-., vent to tip of tail iat.5 mm, The males appear to be generally larger. In females the preanal scales are somewhat conical while in males the same region is covered with imbricate scales. Hemidactylus frenatus Schlegel. The Bridled Gecko. On the 5th June 1938 three specimens of H. frenatus -were caught in the District Bungalow at Sutgutti, near Belgaum. This was the only ‘House-Gecko’ observed in the locality. Colour.—At Sutgutti it was found both on the interior and exterior walls of the bungalow and on the trellis of the verandah. On the white-washed walls at night the lizards were flesh-pink throughout, with no markings whatsoever (observed with an electric torch), but on the blackened trellis they were dark greyish-brown with broken longitudinal lines of a darker hue. Two males seen on a tree in Salsette were greyish-brown, with longitudinal lines faintly visible. I have since seen further examples of this lizard in Salsette and the longitudinal stripes have always been present when on dark surfaces. Breeding.—At Andheri two males were caught on _ roadside trees; and a single female which entered the house on the 1st April (1939). She was gravid, a point easily observed in geckoes through the thin abdominal skin. On the 3rd April she laid two eggs, measuring 8x65 mm. The young hatched out on the 15th and 758° JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCTETY. Vol. ET roth May, 42 and 43 days respectively after the eggs were laid. One escaped from the glass container. They were at perfect ease on the glass surface and showed no difficulty in climbing. The eggs were firmly agglutinated to each other and to the glass sur- face. The two males referred to above were in full breeding con- dition, the testes being fully developed (see table). Egg-tooth.—The egg-tooth is definitely present in this species. It forms two parallel pear-shaped bodies just under the median line of the upper ‘lip’ and only protrudes very slightly, making it diffi- cult to observe, just as in H. flaviviridis. Voice.—At Sutgutti in June the lizards were very vociferous and frequently called at intervals all night. The call is similar to that of H. brooki. Distribution.—The Fauna p. 96 records, ‘Southern India, Ceylon, Bengal;’ as far as India is concerned. Outside India it is widely distributed. The occurrence of this species as far north as Bombay shows an extension of its range on the west. Hemidactylus flaviviridis Rippel. The Common House-Gecko. The Fauna describes this species as the northern form of H. leschenaulti, from which it is certainly difficult to separate, as certain characters overlap. If any reliance can be placed on the number of the femoral pores of which H. flaviviridis has the fewer (5-7 on each side) there should not be much difficulty in separating the males, but as this is purely a masculine character, what are we to do with the females? H, flaviviridis is the common house-gecko in Bombay and Salsette. In this area it frequents more often the inside walls of buildings than the outer, where its place is often taken by H. brooki. It monopolizes the inside walls, driving out the smaller species, but it is also found on outside walls and trees not far from human habitation. In some respects it may be said to be commensal with man, and in houses where it is not molested it is almost ‘tame’, not minding the inmates. As I have not observed this species at Panchgani, 4,000 ft. I wonder whether its absence is due to altitude. In Bombay and Salsette they are in evidence throughout the year, and their activity is dependent on weather conditions. In the cold season they are less active and generally secrete themselves, but as the weather becomes warmer, about the middle of February, the males begin to call. The call at this season is a low one which can only be imitated by the finger nail being jerkily drawn over a half-empty match box. It appears to be partly a challenge to other males and partly an invitation to the opposite sex. Fights between rival males are frequent at this period—it is the approach of the breeding season. Two males will challenge from a distance, then draw nearer and manceuvre round in semicircles, at the same time swaying their tails with slow undulating movements. They then stop, take stock of each other for a while, and suddenly one rushes at the other. If the opponent is strong enough it faces its anta- gonist and a fight ensues, but if weaker, it makes off and is pursued out of the victor’s territory. In fights they bite each other fiercely, Journ., Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. Pirate VII Common House Gecko Prashad’s Gecko (Hemidactylus flaviviridis Ruppel). (Hiemidactylus prashadi Smith). Gecko (Hemidactylus brooki Gray). A. R. Hughes. Piate VIII Journ., Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. C. McCann. Egg laid on April Ist 1939 Photo b ‘ON ‘ON o wW = s ie) 4 Hy aw. | cis il ‘Sole - os ss =a N o ad | fae) || a5} | ro} | ae | -2@ = | 3} SG The Common House-Gecko (Hemidactylus flavivirid A REPTILE AND AMPHIBIAN MISCELLANY 759 often bruising the delicate skin and in their ardour fall to the ground in the struggle. Here the contest may continue, but usu- ally both take to flight. Ugly wounds are rare, but the tail is sometimes lost. Territorial rigths.—Territorial rights are zealously preserved, but there appears to be a certain grouping during the breeding season, when two or more lizards occupy the same area—possibly a single male and the rest females; certain ‘intruders’ are chased out of the area. The predominance of females suggests that these lizards are polygamous. The diurnal retreats are regularly occupied—a more or less secluded spot away from bright light. Behind pictures and furniture are their favourite retreats. Behind pictures they are often crushed when a spring cleaning is in progress, but if they escape that fate, they invariably fall on the good housewife, much to her discomfort and perhaps to her detriment if standing on a chair! Screams soon summon the whole household to the ‘disaster’ and the ‘offender’ is hunted and if found is mercilessly dispatched ! Though generally nocturnal, to see these lizards hawking insects by day is not uncommon. Once I saw one catching insects on a culvert in bright sunlight at 2 p.m., when the stones were hot! In Salsette I have observed H. flaviviridis is more dependent on human habitations than any of the other species in the area, for though I have taken it on trees, the trees were never far from habitations. Once it establishes itself in a house, it does so, almost to the exclusion of the other smaller species. Sitting out in the garden of an evening I have frequently seen this lizard, at dusk, leave the house and go to the neighbouring trees or to the com- pound wall. Courtship and breeding.—The courtship, at first, appears some- what like the commencement of a contest between rivals. The male watches the female for a time, then slowly, but steadily, approaches, manoeuvring round, wagging his tail and uttering the ‘scratching’ sound as he approaches. He then stops, and both ‘signal’ by tail waggings to each other. The male approaches again, then suddenly the female makes off pursued by her suitor. As they run he catches up with her and takes hold of either the leg or the tail. As soon as she is seized she submits with a gentle trembling, uttering a faint cry the while. He releases her, and away she goes, but without loss of her tail which one might expect under the circumstances. This peculiar behaviour is repeated frequently and is just a prelude to the final act. Before copulation the male holds the female behind the neck with its jaws but releases this hold before completion of the act. In the first grip, the skin of the neck is often ruptured. On the 13th March 1940 I witnessed the prelude to and copulation itself in a pair of H. flaviviridis ; the following observations were made:-—-The male rushed at the female, caught it by the right hind leg, the female did not resist The male gradually transferred its grip from the hind leg to the skin of the abdomen, and finally to the back of the neck, calling from time to time as it did so. The body of the two lizards were now almost in the same line. Gradually the female moved the lower part of her body over the back of the male, lifting her tail 760. JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. ¥LI occasionally as she did so. In the struggle she would now and again loose her position. The male endeavoured to keep her in position with his left foreleg. Eventually the male twisted the hind end of his body in such a manner as to bring his cloaca in contact with that of the female. Copulation followed, the male releasing his hold of the female’s neck at the same time. The whole process lasted about ten minutes. During the breeding season, several lizards may be seen bearing the marks of combat or of copulation. Another curious habit observed was that one lizard would approach another then put out its tongue once or twice, and as it were, lick the other’s snout. This done the two would separate without any further attention. In Bombay and Salsette mating usually takes place after the middle of February, when the weather warms up. The mating period appears to last for a month or two. In 1939 owing to the warm conditions during the latter part of December (1938) and during January (1939), the lizards were out earlier than usual. | have no dehnite information on the period of gestation but Prashad! tells us: ‘The lizards laid two oval eggs on the 8th March just about two months after copulation’. if we are to accept this state- ment, viz., ‘just two months after copulation’, then copulation took place on the 8th January—the winter period in the Punjab. This is, however, not in keeping with his previous statement: ‘The pair- ing season, it appears, is the beginning of the hot weather, just after the long hibernation period’, nor with the statement ‘with the approach of the winter-the lizards retire .. .; coming out of thes retreats about the beginning of March. Throughout the winter one never sees any of these lizards.’ Eggs.—The eggs are generally laid in couples, occasionally only one or three. They are slightly agglutinated together and to the surface they are laid on—yjust enough to keep them together. Mahendra .(l.c. p. 270) states: ‘I have not observed the presence of any such adhesive substance in the eggs of H. flaviviridis, even when new laid, nor have I so found the eggs stuck to each other, or to a substratum.’ Though I have never attempted to systematically rear or breed these lizards, I have often found their eggs, and kept gravid females which laid in captivity. Some of the situations in which I have found the eggs, have been vertical walls, on the backs of cupboards and other furniture, on ledges, on curtains, and in table drawers, and im crevices of wallss Uli an adhesive were absent it would be difficult to explain their presence on a vertical surface! The eggs are generally laid away from strong lght, and what is more, the adhering surface of at least one egg is slightly flattened. These points I have also ob- served in H. maculatus, H. brooki and H. frenatus. -Old eggs generally drop off at the slightest touch. ‘Another point which Mr. Mahendra doubts is that geckoes do sometimes lay ‘collectively’, 1.e. in the same crevice or other suitable spot. On a few occasions it has been my experience that geckoes i i a a Louth. oBiN oH. S, AX SIV; 283 8 *sajso} “yf: oes Jeueysod jo suruedo ‘sdG ‘yoNpiao “po {salqwao "GQ SuMtieosou “J! uMovOI Jo dy Jomo] “ey : Aoupry “yy fstuadimey jo oes ‘spy {siuadiway -y {siwApipide ‘dq (snewUueseiq) Jaddny stptasarany snjkyovpimazy yo suesso jeyueSs ajeway pue sey “q pue “y ‘SIy ‘Vv ‘84 "uur *D ‘19P XI 31v1g "20$ "SIT "UN Avquiog ‘‘uinog a, “w i . ren ee 5 Vas , 3 a ! ; : a ay yA: st t Y 7 : ie , ‘ ¥ re ere x oe Ae 7 1 oe Pern a veh ie ~ iE ha . ~oel : ' > . * ‘ . r . . « . ¥ e “ . \ ry ~ " . r s u . - : ~ . A REPTILE AND AMPHIBIAN. MISCELLANY 761 do lay collectively, provided the locality is really a suitable one. In one of the Museum buildings there was a crevice under a cornice which was literally filled with eggs and egg-shells, most of which were stuck to the stone surface. Again in a disused table drawer in Mr. J. Jacobs’s bungalow (P. W. Museum) there were three pairs of old eggs, besides shell remains of others. At the Kanari Caves, Salsette, I have found the eggs of H. maculatus similarly deposited together. Eges of different individuals vary slightly in size, but eggs laid by the same lizard are generally equal in proportions. Eggs measured by me varied between 9 and 14 mm. A pair of eggs laid on the rst April (1939) measured 14X11 mm. One of these hatched out on the 24th May—in this case an incubation period of 54 days— mae Other I had opened before its time and found in it a well- developed embryo. Prashad (l.c.) referring to the eggs laid on 8th March writes:—Out of the eggs the young hatched out on the 13th iiimes about 27 days ‘after the eves had been.laid .: .’ There is evidently something wrong—8th March to 13th June is 95 days! ‘March’ should probably read May’. Mr. Mahendra records 34 and 33 days as the incubation period. There is a slight difference be- tween the incubation periods recorded by Prashad and Mahendra but a considerable difference -etween their observations and my own. The reason for this variation is difhcult to surmise. That the period is generally comparatively short is perhaps supported by the fact that hatchlings appear in April (Salsette) and early May, but later hatches are not uncommon. A recent hatchling was caught in my bungalow on 15-4-39, and another in the Prince of Wales Museum on 18-4-39. Emergence of Hatchling.—I had the opportunity of observing the hatchling of 24-5-39 emerging from its egg. The procedure is as follows:—At first a small fragment of shell, barely a couple of millimeters across was slightly lifted—the snout of the lizard pressing against it—there was just space enough to allow air in. In this condition the egg remained for a few minutes; then followed a vigorous wriggling within the shell (the darker colour of the body could be seen against the thin shell) which fractured large pieces of the shell. These pieces fell away and the animal remained quiet none a couple of minutes before it finally left the shell, with the remains of the ‘egg’ still attached. At this stage the animal was very active. On emergence the first shedding of the skin takes place. The entire loose epidermis is clearly seen all over the body. Egg-tooth.—On opening the mouth after the animal was put into preservative the double pear-shaped egg-tooth was clearly seen (see diagram). Only the two pointed ends of the pear-shaped bodies protrude very slightly, just enough to rupture the egg. The fresh egg-tooth appears somewhat hyaline. Prashad (l.c.) refer- ring to the egg-tooth in H. flaviviridis remarks :—‘No egg-tooth was to be seen on the head of the young ones.’ Mahendra (l.c.) refer- ring to the same ‘organ’ writes: ‘Although I have examined several newly-hatched young ones, as well as ready-to-hatch embryos of Hemidactylus flaviviridis, | have not been able to find any trace of the egg-tooth, and I am, therefore, in a position to confirm 6 \ 762 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol, XLI Baini Prashad’s observation about its absence in this lizard.’ That both these authors could not discover the ege-tooth in H. flaviviridis is not surprising for both evidently looked for it ‘on the head’ where- Vig, viviridis Ruppel. A. Inner view of upper jaw showing egg-tooth in position. B. Transverse section of head showing egg-tooth in position. Both figures diagrammatic. E. egg-tooth. L. lip. M.- maxilla. as in H. flaviviridis it is not on the head or snout, but fixed to the inner extremity of the upper jaw, and with the exception of tlic minute tip, is concealed between the jaws (see diagram). Climbing powers.—Hatchlings spend a lot more time on the ground than their elders, of whom they appear afraid. A reason for this ‘terrestrial’ habit may be due to a weakness of the digital lamellae. Though the adults climb easily on glass, the young often experience difficulty. Mahendra (/.c.) also remarks on this weakness : ‘but experiments show that it 1s not able to climb up vertical glass surfaces as most adults can.’ In my experience the young do ex-_ perience difficulty in climbing vertical glass faces when covered by a slight film of dust, but clean surfaces they easily manage. It seems from this that the film of dust prevents the lamellae from getting a firm hold. Nevertheless, this difficulty. is soon got over with age. Growth is fairly rapid as no really small young are seen at the time when the period of hthernation is approaching. Sexual variation.—Referring to the difference of size between the sexes, Prashad states, ‘The male is much smaller than ‘the female and is much more active and agile, in build also it is much slighter, and can be easily distinguished even from a distance.’ My experience does not support any of these statements, the males are generally larger and are not less active than the females. Even . Ls anpeieaag A REPTILE AND AMPHIBIAN MISCELLANY 763 in the hand the sexes are none too easy to distinguish, except dur- ing the breeding season when the promunermcest of the hemipenis plese ase OF “the tail (of course the femoral peres) are clearly visible. The fact that males may copulate with females larger than themselves may have given rise to the above conclusion, but there seems little doubt that old males are larger than old females. Food.—Like most geckoes H. flaviviridis is mainly insectivor- ous, the young feed on smaller fry than the adults, but during Ces even adults will stoop to ‘small game’. Even large moths, such as Theretra nissus Drury are Syallowed. Mantids are also eaten, even the large green mantis Hierodula coarctata Westw., but in this case the gecko often comes otf second best. Largish centipedes (Scolopendra) do not go amiss. In January (1940) I saw a gecko catch by the tail-end a cetipede two and a half to three inches long and immediately batter it on the ground. When the victim, which made several attempts to bite, was listless the lizard took it up aeawooden panel and from time to time rebattered it as it tried to curve up towards the head of the assailant; gradually the whole centipede disappeared, the lizard wiped its jaw on the panel and then made off to its usual haunt behind a picture. Large insects are hammered against the surface till dead or nearly so, before being swallowed. This habit has often disturbed the slumbers of the inmates of a home and aroused the suspicions of the presence of a nocturnal visitor either material or ethereal! Protruding wings and whiskers are rubbed into the mouth by side- way brushings of the jaws. Frequently the jaws are rubbed against the surface after a meal, followed by the licking of the jaws, as in satisfaction. Once I saw this gecko catch a large spider in its web which was close to a wall. The gecko jumped at the. spider, got it, but the web being strong enough to hold the gecko, it Beeriined suspended with the spider in its mouth. The lizard wriggled to free itself and in its struggles dropped the spider; but later it managed to reach the ground, where it finished its well-earned meal ! Though the diet 1s varied, certain families of insects are left severely alone, among these are Hemiptera (Garden bugs), Can- tharidae, Dyticidae and Hydrophyllidae (Water Beetles), (Hymeno- ptera (wasps and bees, though many ants are taken), certain Carabidae and Lampridae, Ichneumonidae (perhaps on account of their close resemblance to wasps}, certain Elateridae—such as Agripinis fuscipes F., and certain moths. During the dry weather geckoes appear to drink water regularly. Every evening at dusk a particular lizard which lived in my room, went to a cup on the bathroom shelf and had a long drink before it started on its nocturnal rounds. Gekko gecko Linn. The Tuck-too. My first introduction to living specimens of this large and magni- ficent gecko was in Northern Ree during the Vernay-Hopwood Expedition in 1935. During the early part of the trip I never saw or heard this animal; it was winter, but when we arrived Maungkan (21-3-35) we heard the geckoes calling for the first time, 764 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XLI all over the tea gardens. The call was unmistakable. As we des- cended the Chindwin the animals were a lot more vociferous and numerous. We secured several for the collection. Colouring.—The young, like other gecko voung, are differently coloured from the adults, the banding being most prominent on the tail. Not having made any notes at the time, I cannot refer to the colouration accurately. The adults have a wide range of. colour, but the orange spots in rows across the back, particularly in freshly killed specimens, are very characteristic. Habitat: They frequent houses, huts and trees and at nights are often seen on fence posts. In forests they live in holes or on the bark of trees. \At Pantha, 1 tound severale living together, both young and old, in a hollow trunk on perfectly amicable terms. Voice.—The call is loud and can be heard much more than a hundred yards away (as mentioned in the fuuna) especially in open. forests. It may be divided into two separate parts, the first a crock, crock, repeated several times, followed immediately by the familiar tuck-too similarly repeated and which gives the animal its name. (To be continued). Sp eR EO GqIEE 901]0U OU YOO) PIIg Suzys sy} ssirmjz Aue YyoNo}] JOU pIp | ssnvoog oC Lava Addie) elite ‘DOG “LSIFT ULVNY AVEWOg “NUNOf NOTES ON SOME INDIAN BIRDS. BY Be EL Ny IEOW THER, MeBsOuUn,) feZS. (With 8 plates). . V.—THE SPORTSMAN’S GALLERY. (Continued from page 547 of Vol. xli, No. 3). It must not be supposed that because an individual does not collect eggs, nor kills birds in order to determine to which species or sub-species they correctly belong, he therefore cannot shoot for sport. As a matter of fact 1 am a keen shikari and have had excellent sport after duck and partridge in the United Provinces in addition to spending many a happy day in Bengal and Bihar walking up snipe or having jungle-fowl driven. How hot it can be, how exhausting it is to squelch through the paddy fields after ine Chop. nas, been :cUt, in quest of the “long bills’; but of! the joy of a ‘right and left’ and the thrill when the birds rise well and one is shooting straight. Many a mile also have I trudged along jungle path or sandy nala to take up a fresh position in a beat for jungle-fowl, and if at times I have felt that I simply could not put another foot forward, always I have enjoyed myself, and the hard exercise apart from giving me a hunter’s appetite, has ensured a sound night’s sleep. How much more relished too is the bird one has shot than the snipe or duck purchased in the bazaar! What memories also are revived of early awakenings and a snatched meal so that we can be on the jhils hefore dawn breaks. How cold=ieise at that early “hour; how... But I digress. Ee liveshes present article the intention is not -to: tell of shrkar adventures but to recount experiences when photographing some of the game birds resident in the plains of northern India. The number of species dealt with is small, not because there are not many other representatives but owing to the great difficulty in obtaining photographs of this family: many members readily desert their eggs if their nesting arrangements are interfered with in any way; others seem to possess a sixth sense which tells them of the hidden presence of the photographer, and, taken as a whole, the nests of the different game birds are not easily come by. The game bird commonest throughout the year in those parts of India with which I am best acquainted is undoubtedly the Grey Partridge. It will be as well, therefore, to start with this species. There are two types of country which, in my experience, the Grey Partridge favours more than any other for nesting purposes. The first is irregular ravines, neither narrow nor too deep, studded with light to medium scrub jungle, a facies which is characteristic of many parts of the Agra and Etawah districts, especially in the riverain areas; the second is light scrub land with babool trees Nea 766 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISt, SOCIEDLY, “Vols xen intervening, and bordered by cultivation. A bush common in such country is a green, thorny kind of creeper—the kareel, I think— bearing small red flowers which, in February and March, are much patronised by sunbirds and migrating rosy pastors. Partridges regularly settle on these babool trees with the object of roosting in the branches, and it is under the different bushes, well concealed from view, that the bird lays her eggs. The nest is a small scrape, lined with two or three dead leaves, perhaps a bent or.two, and possibly a few feathers from the bird’s breast. Although up to nine eggs have been recorded I have never seen more than seven in a nest; commonly the full clutch does not exceed five in number. These are cream coloured. The hen sits closely and although | have on several occasions been within an inch (as it were) of photographing her, it has always been the removal of the last twig in order to obtain a perfectly clear view of the bird that has ruined my chance of success. The signs have invariably been the same: the bird suddenly running off the nest, and then a whir of wings. I believe, regretfully, that in every single instance the partridge never returned to her eggs. Every rule, however, has its excep- tion, and I have met this once, and once only, in the case of this species. Sakroo had observed that the owner of the nest in question was absent for approximately an hour and a half every day between 6 and 8 a.m.; while she was away he had from time to time re- moved a few twigs and gradually introduced the hiding tent nearer to the nest. Photography was, in his opinion, now possible— would I come at oncer Such an opportunity was not to be missed and I was soon on the scene. Because I did not touch any twigs the sitting bird took no notice whatever of me even though I was in full view of her while actually making the exposures. It would appear, therefore, that the only sure method of photographing this species successfuily at home is to wait till the hen has left the eggs and then proceed in the manner adopted by my shikari. I am acquainted with only one species of Spur-Fowl, the Painted Spur-Fowl. This occurs throughout the Chota Nagpur division wherever there are hills or rocky ground well covered with bamboo or other jungle. The bird is a great skulker and in a beat will seldom take to flight, preferring instead to run either across, with the object of getting away between the beaters and the guns, or to slip down some wooded nala and along the foot of a bank, some- times singly, but more often the pair together. The Painted Spur-Fowl likes to be well out of sight when in- cubating and therefore lays her eggs either in a recess under the roots of some tree growing on a bank, or deep under an over- hanging rock on a hill-side. Another favourite nesting site is in the heart of a thick clump of bamboos at the foot of which dead leaves have collected. No nest worth mentioning is made, the three or four buff coloured eggs, rather smailer than those of the country fowl, lying in a scrape with, perhaps, a few leaves collected round about, probably more by accident than design. The photograph of Sakroo looking down on to an incubating Painted Spur-Fowl gives an excellent idea both of the habitat of this species and of a typical nesting site, ee rn at a Bowsay Nat. IRN. \F VIX J P i 25 ; i_. FN RR a a ce DA} ' * a Se ~ ) ~~, > as making w: y t 11 j J on to her ever succeedec eggs. iking Wa} NOTES ON SOME INDIAN BIRDS . 767 Although the Painted Spur-Fowl sits very closely, in such dark places does the hen usually lay her eggs that I have never heen ale to photograph her. on the nest. Whe only exposure I have succeeded in making was of a female walking on to her eggs. My hopes that the bird would take up a position more suitable for my purposes were frustrated by her unexpectedly turning away more sharply from the lens than I had anticipated so that when finally | released the shutter the beak and eye were lost to view. What a fright the noise of the shutter gave the Spur-hen! She just jumped and scuttled away, and although she hung around, clucking, would mor ceturm to her egos.- At the end of two hours I abandoned the idea of taking subtle photographs, and removing the camera, etc. made myself scarce. My relief was great when, passing by early the same evening, I noticed she was sitting again. Ww ‘riting of “ce Painted Spur-Fowl reminds me how very differ- ent in temperament members of the same species can. be. On 29 May 1935 I investigated a bundle of hay lying within five yards of the road that encircles the reservoir at Topchanchi, .twenty-two miles distant from Dhanbad. Within three yards of each other, in cavities under this, a Red Jungle-Fowl and a Painted Spur-Fowl mchemimecubating three and’ four eggs respectively. “The former deserted because I had almost trodden on her. Not so the Spur- Fowl, and as her eggs were at the edge of the hay I entertained great hopes of photographing her. My shikari knew the habits of the species well and during the next two mornings cleared the way for photography while the female was absent ‘feeding. Un- fortunately the hide had not been placed in quite the correct posi- tion, and equally unfortunately, the Spur-Fowl was ees wien I -arrived- on the scene on June 1. Long before I had: fixed matters up to my liking she had run off and disappeared into the jungle. Nevertheless, I felt hopeful of success. During the next two hours or so she walked all round me, once or twice even peck- ing at the hay used on the outside of my tent, her presence made known all the time by the crinkling of leaves. Occasionally too I obtained a glimpse of her. I felt she must, every minute, walk on to her four eggs, and was keyed up to concert-pitch. Alas! she scented me or some instinct told the bird MAN was now inside the strange-looking bush, and again I failed in my object. The same evening (June r) Sakroo found another Painted Spur- Fowl’s nest, high up on the hill-side overlooking the reservoir, the one into w hich he is looking in the accompanying plate. The hide was setup beside the nest and as he reported the following day that the hen was sitting and not in the least afraid of the tent, | decided to try my luck once more. June oyutneretore, BSaw * me toiling up the precipitous hill, pausing constantly to mop my brow and regain my breath. Sel dom have’ T felt so done as: when reached the nesting site: I lay in a state of collapse for half an hour or more before I could rouse myself to investigate matters. The Spur-hen was at home, sitting tight, very tight, looking straight at me, her body sunk into the sight depression of ihe nest and with feathers fluffed out so that ane appeared more like a Jungle-Fowl in size. It seemed clear that the eoes must be near 768 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCKET Vo Vols X4ek old fe 4 hatching. At first I thought of gave up the idea, as only with difficulty could she be seen with the naked eye, while she did not show up at all on the ground- glass. I therefore set up the hide, intending to put the Spur-Fowl off the nest and obtain her portrait as she returned to the eggs. But it was of no use, and whereas the bird I had attempted to photograph on June 1 would not return to the nest, this individual absolutely declined to leave her eggs. Debating in my mind the queer ways of the female of the species, I left her in peace. I derived no little satisfaction a few days later when I discovered from a close inspection of the nest that the eggs had hatched suc- cessfully. A week previously that particular hill-side -had been scoured from top to bottom by one hundred or more Manjis (the local savage), everything being killed or taken which they came across. I had seen their ‘bag’ which included snakes, lizards, iguanas, tree rats, two long-tailed nightjars, a pitta, two kinds of doves, dozens of birds eggs, and a wild pig. But the Spur- Fowl’s home escaped detection, a fact which speaks volumes for Sakroo’s ability to find nests. The Red Jungle-Fowl is not so Secretive im its the number “rose toge,.04. In the Province of Orissa the total area of demarcated forests is limited to 2,118 square miles in which 19 tigers were shot. The average number for the last 3 years is 16. In controlled forests in Central India, covering the major Indian States and the British Province, the total number of tigers killed in 1937-1938 was 213. MISCELLANEOUS NOTES 885 Bombay Province and Hyderabad. In the Bombay Province there are 10,819 square miles of demarcated forests: in much of this area tigers are not usually found or have long since been exterminated, Khandesh and Kanara being now the main strongholds. The total number killed within the Province in 1937-19038 was 34. The average’ number for the last 6 years was 37. Except in the case of man-eaters, no rewards are-given for killing tigers. The total area of reserved forest in Nizam’s Dominions covers roughly 545 square miles. The total number of tigers killed within this, area was 17. -No tewards are paid within the State. The total number of tigers killed in controlled forests in the Bombay Province and Hyderabad State in 1937-1938 was 51. Southern India. The total area of demarcated forests in the Province of Madras iM 1937-1938 was 15,124. square miles. Of this total 15,124 sq. miles represent reserved forests under the control of the Forest Department and the remainder reserved forests under the control of Panchayats, and reserved lands. As in the Province of Bombay, tigers are no longer found or: have been exterminated from a large part of this area. The total number of tigers reported killed ime these forests. im the year 1937-19036. amounts to 19, Fortunately, from this province, figures are also available for areas outside the control of the Forest Department, which during that year amounted in all to 51; 37 of which were accounted for in the forests of Malabar which apparently contains the largest number. But as stated previously, doubts have been cast upon the correctness of this figure. South Kanara comes next with 7. Shooting of tigers within the reserved forests of the Nilgiri division is controlled by the Niigiri Game Association, which is perhaps the most success- ful organization of its kind in the whole of India. In 1936-1937 the total number of tigers shot in the Nilgiris was 8; and in 1937-1938, 5. No rewards are paid for the shooting of tigers in the Nilgiri areas. In the Madras Province, a maximum reward of Rs. 50 is paid in 4 districts and Rs. 30 in other districts. | In Mysore State, tigers are listed as a ‘game animal’ and a licence has to be obtained tor shooting them. Shooting is how- ever not permitted in Tiger Preserves or in the Game Sanctuaries. Areas where tigers are reported by the District Magistrate to be causing ‘havoc’ to human life or to cattle, are thrown open to free shooting for such periods as may be considered necessary. The approximate area of forests in Mysore State is 4,434 square miles. The number of tigers shot, within this area in 1937-1938 is 54. In Travancore State there are a little over-360 Square miles of reserved forests and the number of tigers reported shot within the last 11 years is 8. The total number of tigers -killed in reserved forests in the Province of Madras and in Mysore is 81, of which 54 were accounted for im Mysore State:. If the areas.outside reserved forests are $86 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL: HIST, SOCIETY, Vol. XLI included, the total number reported killed in Southern India, i.e. Madras Province and Mysore, was 132. | wen Of tiwers shot: Details are available from a few provinces regarding the sex of the animals killed in the year 1937-1938 :— Assam 17 tigers 1 tigress Bengal 40 i 11 tigresses Behar 74 Er 2 a United Provinces 7 - 43 s : Bombay Pie ar a “A Nilgiris RON ts 3 an Out of the 195 animals shot in the Provinces of Northern India 137 were males and 58 females: the proportion of sexes working out roughly to 70 males to 30 females. For the Bombay Province figures are available for the last 3 years: out of a total of r10 animals reported killed between the years 1936 and 1939, 72 were males. and 38 females) ihe proportion of sexes for the 3 years working at is 65 : 34. For Mysore State: out of 54 animals reported, killed, 50-were males and 4 females. The figures everywhere reveal a great preponderance of males over females. The data is interesting when brought into relation with a note published by Mr. R. CG. Morris (Jour. BN ASS.; Volo xxxinpaion2) in which he says that out of 16 tigers killed in the Coimbatore District in the last few years, ro were tigresses and 6 were tigers. An- excess of females over males is also shown in Mr. G. H. Marshall’s note on tigers killed during 10 years (1927-1937) iu the Naga Hills, Assam where out of a total of 59 animals, 27 were tigers arid 32 tigresses. Finally we have the data provided by the three censuses of tigers taken in the Game Range, Palamau Division, Bihar, by Mr. J. W. Nicholson, I.F.S., in 1934 and over the whole division by Mr. C. M. Chaudhri, Deputy Conservator of Forests, Bihar in 1936 and again in 1938. The data provided in all three censuses again shows a considerable preponderance of males over females. The tigers were enumerated “as they ‘came: to) drink atm ayater holes. The time of the censuses was during the hot weather, and due precautions were taken to avoid error in the counting. Details of the svstem adopted and of the results will be found in Mr. Chaudhri’s ‘interesting paper s(Indian, Forester, - Sept.) 1638, p. 612)... The vesults of the three Censuses may “be tabularedmas Follows ;—— Game Range, Palamau. Year Total Males Females enumerated 1934 ni Be 22 10 1936 ay 28 17 La 193 he 18 12 6 MISCELLANEOUS NOTES 887 The reduction in the total number counted in the year 1938 -as compared with 1936 is ascribed to a fire which took place in one of the forest blocks, and to the block being thrown open to work- ing, resulting in a migration of tigers into adjoining Zemindari jungle. The data for the two censuses covering the whole division are as follows :— Year Total Males Females enumerated 1936 rie 45 27, 18 1938 oF 29 1g 10 Both Mr. Nicholson and Mr.. Chaudhri comment on the low pro- portion of females to males. It is difficult to draw conclusions from the data _ provided, but if the records available of tigers shot by licence-holders in reserved forests in British India are taken as an indication, then the forests of the United Provinces, in relation to their extent, contain easily the’ largest number; next comes the Central Pro- vinces, then Bombay, and finally Madras where the numbe: dwindles considerably except in the rain forests of the Malabar Coast and Mysore. Commenting on the depletion of tigers in the forests of Southern India Mr. R. C. Morris writes— ‘The chief cause of the disappearance of tigers in South India is, however, not in their destruction, but the killing-oft of their natural source of food supply. There is not the slightest doubt to my mind that the wholesale slaughter of sambhur and chital by poachers and village licensees has affected the breeding of tiger detrimentally. In Sanderson’s time the Chamarajanagar taluk of the Mysore District held a number of tigers; there are now none, or only an occasional wanderer. This is entirely due to the exter- mination of the deer in the Chamarajanagar forests, including the Chamarajanagar Game Sanctuary. As the deer were shot out the tiger left, and their numbers in the adjoining taluks of the Coim- batore District have decreased with the diminution of deer, con- tinually harassed and shot as they are increasingly. The reason for the satisfactory position of tiger on the Nilgiris, and in the area under the control of the Nilgiri Game Association, is due to the fact that sambhur and chital abound in these parts. A poacher nowadays, sitting up over a water-hole, has no hesitation in shoot- ing a tiger, should it turn up instead of a chital or sambhur. I do think however that a limit of a tiger per gun, per district, per annum should be imposed, as is now the rule in Mysore’. The abolition of rewards for tiger has presumably little effect on the numbers destroyed as a dead tiger (like the Rhino) has a market price-—-the skin—the meat and the fat, are all in great demand, as also the clavicles, teeth and claws, all of which bring profit to the poacher. The rewards offer little or no incentive to sportsmen. Secondly the data available suggests a predominance of males. Finally the payment or non-payment of rewards appears to have 888 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XLI had ‘little effect: on’ the numbers killed.) -@hindiy “stoppagevor the rewards in the United Provinces, Central Provinces, and elsewhere has not been followed by any appreciable decline in the number of tigers killed. Burma. Reserved forests in Burma cover an incomparably greater area than in any province in India. There are 31,374 sq. miles of reserved forests. Throughout these forests tiger shooting is con- trolled under an ‘unprotected game’ licence which costs Rs. to. In addition there are ‘unclassed’ forests covering 94,468 square miles. Here tigers may be shot without restriction. Much of this unclassed forest however contains no tiger... While in the reserved forests, according to the Game Warden, tigers are ‘far more numer- ous than is generally appreciated’. As regards Burma, Mr. F. H. Mustill, the Game Warden has favoured us with a statement showing the number of tigers reported shot during the last 10 years. In a period of 4 years, between 1928-1932, 1,382 tigers were reported) Shot: the averase number per year being 365. The maximum ‘number “reported, killed’ in any one year within this period being 492, and the minimum 2or. The subsequent 6 years show an abrupt decrease in the number of tigers reported killed: the average dropping to 94 per annum, the figures for 1937-1938 being only 67, and the maximum being 182 and the minimum, 57. Mr. Mustill states that ‘from Sep- tember 1931 a general reward of Rs. 20 for each tiger shot was discontinued. Hence the figures from that date show considerable diminution and are in all probability unreliable’. Mr. Mustill adds, ‘My contention that the discontinuance of a general reward for shooting of Carnivora (which includes bear, leopard and wild dog, in addition to tiger) brought about consider- able diminution in the number of tigers shot applies also to the other Carnivora :— Year Leopard Bear Wild Dog 1928-29 ont 1,242 Inti 219 1929-30 Se: 82 1,018 210 1930-31 ne 478 327 121 1931-32 ae 615 307 107 1932-33 runt: 479 306 79 1933-34 oe 539 408 87 1934-35 te 205 146 47 1935-36 vs 30 30 | 8 1936-37 vee 51 IOl el eabg 1937-38 a 38 209 66 The figures for Carnivora shot during 1935-36 had shrunk ‘to such an extent that Divisional Forest Officers were specially asked to see that steps were taken to report all deaths of Carnivora. As seen from the above table some improvement in results has occurred but the figures nowadays in no way approach those for years pre- vious to 1931. That this diminution in shooting of Carnivora is MISCELLANEOUS NOTES 889 due in no way to diminution in stock is plainly evident from the numbers of tiger and wild dog especially which are to be found in the Burma Forests today.’ The position appears to be at variance with what obtains in India where the discontinuance of payment of rewards in various provinces, as shown by the figures available, has had no appreciable effect on the number of tigers killed. BomBAay NATURAL History SOcIETY, S. EH. uPRAVER, April 15th, 1940. Curator. I1.—THE ‘SAMBUR’ CALL OF THE TIGER AND ITS Xe NATION: I hope the following will be of interest. Early in April 1940 1 was shooting with the Maharaj Kumar of Vizianagram in the jungles of the Maharani of Khairigarh in akhinpury Kher, Oudh, and invthe Nepal barat, On the 6th I took my seat in a comfortable machan at about 5 p-m. in a thick and secluded part of the jungles on the Nepal border. Behind me was a small though thick tree and_ ringal clump and on the other sides was a sea of narkul and ratwa grass ranging from 2 to 20 feet in height.’ My object was not to shoot but watch wildlife and use my Cine-Kodak to the best advantage. At about 5-20 p.m. a tiger and a tigress came out of the ratwa grass into a clearing in front of me and about 150 yards away. At first they sat down to survey the country and then they started to gambol like a couple of overgrown kittens. I was directly in their path and they would certainly have come past me, and given me a magnificent picture, when I saw the tigress stiffen her limbs and look in my direction a little to one side and towards: the tree. junele. | felt certain she had not winded me. On looking back I found that one of my two look-out men, who had been placed in an improvised machan, was trying to scale another tree. I was naturally annoyed but could do nothing. How- ever these preceedings were of considerable interest as by this time the tiger too was all attention and I heard and saw him utter the much-discussed ‘sambar’ call. From the way the tigers stared I was convinced that they had not made out what they had seen and, as they were uncertain whether it was friend or foe, they uttered this cry. Ther expressions and attitude were a picture of suspicion mixed with a certain amount of alarm, and it struck me that the cry was also a cry of warning, for the tiger on uttering it promptly looked back at his mate who was a little behind him. After staring intently for another minute the pair turned round and disappeared from view. In connection with this call I should like to narrate another incident which I experienced when shooting in the East Fen Block of the Mandla district, C. P., a few years ago. In a secluded part of thick jungle was a small pool very much used by wild animals. On three sides was thick jungle and on the fourth was a ridge about 4 feet high with rank grass and shrubbery, and beyond this 14 890 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XLI was an open glade of grass. On the previous evening at’ about 5-30 p.m., while sitting on the ridge with two shikaris, we saw a tiger moving along in the thick jungle evidently on his evening prowl. On the following evening we again repaired to the ridge and about 5-30. p:m. a, large herd of »pig entered the water and were snouting about in the weeds, After half an hour they jerked yup their heads, listened intently looking towards the opposite bank, and then started to feed again though they appeared to be decidedly on the alert. Meantime we sat practically motionless smoking and chatting in whispers. One of the shikaris got up to hand me my binoculars when we heard the ‘sambar’ call from the direction in which the pig had been looking. The swine bolted and my friend and I did not in any way connect this with the call we had heard which I must confess we took to be that of a Sambar. However our shikaris were certain it was a tiger who, on suddenly noticing suspicious objects on the ridge, uttered the call in surprise and alarm and possibly as a warning. We saw no tiger but later veri- fied from pug marks that one at least had passed along the jungle from where the sound had. come: “It. seems to ime what am ibot cases the ‘Sambar’ call was uttered as a note of sudden surprise or suspicion coupled with alarm and the instinct possibly to warn a mate close at hand. If you think this worth publishing in our Journal I shall be interested to see comments. 19, RajpoRE Roap, Be sos oe ENVaise DELHI. April 24, 1940. Iti.—A TAIL-LESS. PANTHER. (With a photo). A: Tail-less Panther. On the 18th-r9th night of December 1939, I shot a panther at Amadeh Village, 15 miles from Pipariya, ©. P. On examining the MISCELLANEOUS NOTES 891 panther with two other British Officers we found it was completely ‘tail-less’; there was not even a stump, and the panther showed no signs of a scar, or that the tail had been bitten or cut off. The panther, an old male, measured 4 ft. io in. from snout to the base of its spine.. D. RAMSAY BROWN, ForRT SANDEMAN, . Ite ia February 16, 1940. 2nd Goorkhas, 1st Battalion. [In Vol. xxxvil, p. 719 of the Society’s Journal we published a photegraph of a tail-less tiger sent to us by Mr. R. C. Morris. lips. IV.—HYAENA CARRYING OFF A BEAR CUB. ‘A bear provided an interesting experience.- I had wandered down Sultan’s Road (Talamalai) about eleven o’clock with Jeddia hoping to see a bear in the bright moonlight. Presently a bear came along and I fired at it. It ran off as hard as it could go, yelling and I thought I had missed; as it went, I let it have another or at least attempted to do so. As I fired I saw it had a baby riding like a jockey on its back in the usual bear way. It cleared right off. Presently I heard the calling of what sounded like a small bear from where the bears had disappeared. This was a second young one which had not heen getting a ride when I fired at the mother. Presently there was a fiendish noise and I saw a hyaena tearing through the open, yelling or laughing or whatever you like to call it, and it picked up the little bear and carried it off before my eyes! In spite of the bright moonlight I could not get on to it quickly enough to fire and it ran into the jungle emitting a series of fiendish giggles—it could not laugh on account of the. bear in its mouth! Next morning we found the dead mother bear and the jockey young one with it.’ |The above is an extract from a letter: dated the 3rd April 1940 trom: Wir TE; Shortt, oes meme Guindy, Madras, forwarded by Mr. ak V.—ON JACKALS (CANIS INDICUS),. The following two incidents occurred when T was out with a party in the foot hills in the Ambala district. (a) Curious behaviour of a Jackal. We were having a jungle beaten for anything from panther downwards. I lay “asain with a friend on the bank of a nallah, and between the nallah and the jungle which was being beaten was a pool of water 20 ft x20 ft. and about 6 in. deep. A game path led from the jungle to the water through which animals 692 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XLI passed to cross the nallah into thinner scrub jungle. It was about 2 p.m. and I was lying with my hands under my chin, and staring towards the game path in the hopes of seeing the panther which was known to be there. Nothing nobler than a glabrous jackal, however, came out and entered the water without seeing me. When he was half way through I purposely made a _ slight movement which was at once detected. The beat could be heard some 200 yards away and, after a hurried glance back, the jackal to my surprise proceeded to submerge his head. He took it out after a few seconds for a breather and ducked again. After he had repeated this a few times we could not control a subdued laugh. This was too much for our friend who bolted back into the jungle now preferring to face the beat. It is obvious that he first con- sidered himself between the devil and the deep sea and was so taken by surprise that he resorted to a silly subterfuge. (b) Jackals hunting hare. At the same place on another occasion I was lying down facing the scrub jungle at about 2-30 p.m. The open jungle con- sisted of interspersed thorn bushes and small clumps of sarkanda. I saw a jackal walk quietly upto a sarkanda clump and lie down against it in the shaded part. Then some 60 yards behind and to one side I saw a hare moving about and almost. at the same moment caught sight of another jackal who moved slowly and apparently unconcernedly in such a way that the hare drew closer to the bush where the other jackal lay in ambush without move- ment. Within a few minutes the hare was hopping past the snare when he was knocked over and secured. I suppose that jackals, like wolves and‘ wild dogs, work on carefully preconceived plans but this is the first time that I had occular proof of this. 19, RAJPORE Roap, ES) bEW IS: DELHI, March 24, 1940. [The jackal appears to have emulated the legendary behaviour of the ostrich in the sand. Unfortunately in crouching to escape observation—instinctive behaviour—he was compelled to have recourse to’ a less convenient element. As regards the tactics of Jackals in hunting the hare,’ there is: a) note inisour Journal, apy, Mr. Salim A. Ali (Vol. xxxi, p. 812). There were two jackals, says Mr. Ali, but only one took part in the hunt—the other sneaking off when observed. There was no subterfuge in their hunting. The jackal’ went straight for the hare and kept at the chase in spite of being fired at twice and wounded with a charge of small shot. There is also an instance of two jackals attacking a spaniel (C. M. Inglis, Vol. Uxxxvill, p. 1122); one stood) fo ‘engage the dos.) the. other coming’ up from” behind. tried to takerit fromthe tear Jackals. usually carrion-feeders, will hunt any small animal they can master and in their hunting they probably resort to methods sometimes adopted by the larger carnivores. The lion is known to drive its past iansanh Journ., Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. He would take hold of a hard object in his hand and crash it down on the ground with great violence. - He was a friendly animal, allowed loose about the house. Tue CRraAB-EATING MUNGOOSE. Herpestes urva (Hodgs.). MISCELLANEOUS NOTES 893 quarry in the direction of the ambushed lioness and _ cubs, and tigers have been observed to follow the same strategy.—Eps. | VI.—MONGOOSE ATTACKING A DONKEY. We were duck-shooting last February about 20 miles from Delhi and were approaching water at about 11 a.m. About 200 yards away were two donkeys grazing in grass some 6 in. high. Suddenly one fell over and all we could see were legs kick- ing frantically in the air. We could not understand what had happened and so walked up to have a look. A huge slaty-coloured jungle mongoose (locally known as jhund) had seized the donkey by his snout and would not let go. A tap on the back with the butt end of a gun sent him scampering off and he was then shot. Is it a fact that donkeys are thus killed and is this usual? Surely prey of these dimensions is ordinarily beyond the killing capacity of a mongoose however big! 19, RajJPORE Roan, De sae Ia Als). DELHI, April 24, 1940. [The mongoose can be a pugnacious and sanguinary creature, and may quite easily resent and punish disturbance by a blundering donkey; but we doubt whether it makes a practice of attacking donkeys, or is so ambitious as to want to kill and eat one.—EDs. | VII.—THE CRAB-EATING MONGOOSE [HERPESTES WEVA HT OUGS. IN CAPTIVITY. (With a plate). I send herewith four snaps of a pet Mongoose; perhaps you could let me know to what species he belongs as he is not the usual type of smaller mongoose. I am of opinion that he is an im- mature crab-eating mongoose, a specimen of which I sent you for identification from Tavoy last year. This little animal is extremely tame and is about four months old. He does not show much aptitude in dealing with live snakes, but is very keen on fish of © all kinds. He is a very friendly little animal and is allowed loose about the house. He spends much of his time feeling with his fore paws in crevices or under carpets apparently in the hope of finding a frog or snail concealed there. Another little trick he has, which I have tried to show in the accompanying photograph, is his habit of taking hold of any hard object, such as a stone or golf ball, and hold it in his fore paws and crash it down on the ground with great violence, so that it is flung behind him; at the time of impact he jumps so as to clear his hind legs of the missile. Photo- graph No, 1 shows him in the act of crashing a stone on the 894 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST; SOCIETY, Vol. XLI ground; in No. 2, he is apparently about to commence another throw. He prefers to carry out this game on a hard surface and J think in the natural state these animals use this method for opening shelfish. The force used in crashing the stone or other object on the ground is really astonishing and to stand behind him when he is playing this game on a hard surface may lead to a severe bruise on the shin. He spends most of his time feeling under stones and crevices with his paws from which I gather his main diet is frogs. MOULMEIN, A. L°E. BROWNLOW, january 11, 1940. Dist. (Supts OfeePolice. {The subject of the note is the Crab-eating Mongoose, Herpestes urva, which is found in the South Eastern Himalayas, Assam, Arakan, Pegu, and Tenasserim. Compared with other species of Mongoose it is exceptionally heavy in build, a character associated with its distinctive habits. Very little has been recorded about the habits of this animal. Blanford, quoting Hodgson, states that it is somewhat aquatic and lives chiefly on frogs and crabs which abound in the Himalayan and Burmese streams. The habit displayed by this mongoose of sitting up with any hard object in its hands and dashing it violently on the ground is probably an indication of its customary way of dealing with hard-shelled crabs and molluscs upon which \it*feeds.. Like other species, 1t- lives am holes ine the ground. In this species, the anal glands are about the size of a cherry and the animal has the power of squirting out a foetid fluid from them backwards with great force.—Eps. | VIII.—HYBRID AMERICAN BISON AND INDIAN 7 DOMESTICICOW: The enclosed photo of a cow and her young one may interest you. The cow is by an American bison from an ordinary cow. MISCELLANEOUS NOTES 895 Then she was served by a Watussi bull and the young one is the result. Also I am enclosing a separate photo of the young one. SA DEG 2, SLi Er, Assistant Secretary to His Highness the Maharaja of Mysore, Mysore. THE PALace, BANGALORE. February 8, 1940. Ti WALES IN BARODA, WITH NOTES ON THE ANATOMY OF THE FIN-WHALE (BALAENOPTERA INDICA) STRANDED AL MULVEL IN MARCEH 1920: Baroda City is somewhat inland, but the State has her sea- board both in Gujarat and Kathiawar : Okhamandal and Kodinar dis- tricts in-the latter, and Navsari district in the former. The Kathiawar seas receive only a few rivers, like the Singoda or the Gomti, while in Gujarat as many as nine run through Baroda territory before emptying themselves in the Arabian Sea and its arm, the Gulf of Cambay. In these seas whales are not uncommon having been seen spouting, not only from steamers or fishing and other vessels but also from ashore, especially near Dwaraka and Muldwaraka. The stranding of dead whales is, however, rare; for, so far, there are only three instances of the washing ashore of such carcases. The earliest on record was in 1879, when a 50 ft. whale came ashore at Dwaraka opposite the Political Officer’s Bungalow and very nearly caused a pestilence. In 1883 a baby whale’ 12 ft. long was cast up on the beach at Varvala near Dwaraka. Both were eventually cut up and buried in the sandy shore. A lot of the blubber was carried. away by the Dheds who ate-a portion of it and converted the remainder into oil by boiling it down. In 1919 a huge whale 71 feet long was washed ashore near Tithor up the Mahisagar river. On the 21st March 1939 the pearlfishers working in the various bays near Mulvel in Okhamandal were scared by an amazing scene, a huge Magar Machi splashing, spouting and struggling in the Doribid bay. Apparently in its pursuit of food it had been carried along by the treacherous currents for which the Gulf of Cutch is * In the course of a discussion, Mr. Dereniyagala, Director of Fisheries Ceylon, expressed doubts about the identity of the animal as a whale because of the small size. The old records give the size, and call the animal a whale, but throw no further light on its zoological position. 896, JOURNAL, “BOM BAW (NATURALS HiSRa SS OC lind You alia) amxein notorious, till it suddenly found itself in the shallows of the Rann Bay; in its desperate efforts to escape, it became more and more incapacitated by the glairy mud, dangerous even to man, though the favourite haunts of the Placuna Pearl Oyster. It was indeed a ticklish problem to float the huge carcase which had sunk more than half in the mire and the solution involved no little trouble and time. Finally on the 25th the carcase was towed away to Okha by two Motor launches the ‘Indira’ and the ‘Yaswant’. The body bore neither marks of damage nor any harpoon or other evidence of having been hunted. Another whale, which was stranded at about the same time, further south in the Arabian Sea, in the Bardez district of Goa, is said to have borne a harpoon. Whales, with their pigmy cousins, the dolphins and the porpoises, are generally looked upon by fishermen as helpers in their vocation. For fish, in their terror at the approach of these giants, rush away as if blinded and are easily netted. Sometimes the dolphins damage the nets. When carcases of these aquatic monsters are washed ashore, villagers usually consider themselves lucky. In South India the belief is otherwise. Ananda Ranga Pillay in his famous Diary refers to a dead fish. stranded in Pondicherry in 1757, 160 feet long and also mentions a smaller one 30 feet long driven ashore there 9 years previously and is sure that the giant forebodes dis- aster much greater than that ushered in when the smaller creature appeared. The Mulvel whale, after being taken to Port Okha, received offerings, floral mostly, from lady visitors who shared the general belief that the Dev Massa was the harbinger of prosperity and good luck. At Mulvel where the State is, running a Pearl Fishery, the arrival of the whale spelt a loss as it stopped the fishery temporarily. Sharks', the terrible scavengers of the sea, gathered round the carcase and naturally the workers refused to go near the oyster beds. This was the main reason why the carcase was towed away to Port Okha where it was auctioned. As the whale was being cut up by the lessee, I availed myself of the opportunity to examine it and the notes and observations made are embodied in this preliminary report. Details regarding muscu- lature, osteology, etc. will be published later. The Mulvel whale identified as Balaenoptera indica measured 79 feet in length and 19 feet across. Its height was 6 feet.) Whe width is more than what it, should correctly be and the height much less, but that is due to postmortem changes. The head measured 18 feet. The flippers were 6 “feet lone. pRachiajaw measured 17 feet in length. A characteristic of the genus is the plaiting of the skin of the throat and the undersurface and sides of the chest. The whale, when dead, usually turns on its back and so the telltale plaits on the throat and belly made identification simple. The dorsal fin which gives the animal its popular name ‘the fin whale’ was noth- " Among the sharks which came to feast on the whale at Okha, one 11} feet long was caught and auctioned, MISCELLANEOUS NOTES 897 ing but skin and blubber. The tail, which is extended horizont- ally and vertically had each fluke 9 feet in length. It was also composed of soft parts, skin and blubber. The general colour of the whale was said to be dark grey while the tail, the flippers and the underside were lighter. The general public thought that the whale ‘committed suicide’ because she had swailowed treasure or something else equally dis- agreeable. The common belief is that the whale runs ashore to die, maddened by pain. An ancient rule in Britain makes all whales stranded or captured in the tidal waters the perquisites of the Sovereign, the king claiming the head and the queen the tail. Here the bones and stomach contents were reserved for Government and excluded from the sale. The vast quantity of matter in the inside of the whale created great surprise among the observers. The general idea entertained was that immediately an opening was made; the bowels, heart and other organs would be seen. Instead several hours were spent in cutting away the vast masses of flesh below the blubber and the viscera was not reached till later. The apparent hardness felt in the abdomen and which raised the hopes of treasure was because of the gases arising from the whale’s last meal. The entrails on exposure disappointed every one and even disgusted those present, for so foul did the contents smell. The stomach contained in its chambers—four could be distinctly made out—mostly unrecognisable matter, but for the illdigested remains of fish. The intestines were very long and seemed to be full of little pouches. | The purchaser of the carcase bought it for the sake of the oil, which he extracted from the blubber and meat. The blubber was mere tissue, tough and fibrous, but containing a large amount of oil. It invested every part of the whale, but was thicker in some regions like near the back fin. The thin but tough dark skin covered a two-inch layer of yellowish-white fat beneath which lay the fibrous-textured blubber and then the reddish muscular tissue. Ligaments and tendons were broad and flat and yellowish-white in colour. While at Mulvel, volumes of blood were spouted up and the water all round about dyed red. Later, as the carcase was towed from Mulvel to Port Okha, a matter of 15 miles, it left a trail of blood and fat. The heart was a ponderous mass of flesh which quite filled a large drum. Blood-vessels were found to break up into ‘retiamirabilia’. The brain was a huge mass, the cerebral hemispheres being much convoluted. It filled a bucket and weighed 7 lbs. There were 15 pairs of ribs the lontest having the curvature measuring 15 feet. The vertebrae totalled 63 and in the hinder part of the body had cartilaginous cushions between them. Two smal! curved bones were found embedded in the flesh near the re- productive opening; these apparently represent the pelvis. The specimen was apparently a female. S. T. MOSES, Ju POZE St eR SAeTe g9g8 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol, XLI X.—ANALYSIS"OF A SALT LICKIN KOELEBGAE, COIMBATORE, S. INDIA. 7 I am enclosing a copy of the analysis of some salt-lick earth which the Director of the King Institute, Guindy (Col. Shortt) has haddone for me. I have alwavs found this earth salty to the taste, which has not been the case with earth of game salt-licks I have tasted else- where. The earth was of a powdery nature, exuding in narrow belts on the face of the salt-lick, and ochre in colour. Fresh exuda- tions of earth take the place of any removals. I may add that the previous sample of earth IT sent in to the Society from this salt- lick was not of this exudation but merely of the salt-lick face, lighter in colour, and containing little or no sodium chloride. The salty powdery earth now analysed was taken by me from the well-known Kottuguli salt-licks in the Kollegal taluk of the Coimbatore district. Herds of cattle are driven to the salt-licks annually from both the Kollegal and N. Coimbatore ranges and game animals visit the salt-licks extensively. Col. Shortt comments on the analysis as follows :— ; ‘Only traces of the insoluble matter were soluble in dilute acid. The solution gave a reaction for iron and magnesium. The solu- tion contained traces of aluminium and calcium salts. The absence of ammoniacal nitrogen would indicate that the chloride was not due to urine from the animals. It is obvious from this that the sample contained quite a high percentage of sodium chloride which would easily account for the salt taste. This percentage is about twice that of sea-water. I believe this percentage of sodium chloride is much higher than iS usually found in salt-licks. Samples previously tested by Father Caius have shown a chloride content of from 0.074 to I 343° pels cent.’ / ANALYSIS. Insoluble inorganic ca) 402 pper cent Sodium chloride Seah Atel re oo Sodium sulphate Peete gl cleat em Ammoniacal nitrogen “cl, peractically -albsemt. Phosphate vele TNDSemt Organic matte inn, 3 Be peracent: Water ; tee g'6 7) ms) Not accounted for (Soluble) “2+ 12.55, 05: TOO OR BE nian, HoNNAMETTI ESTATE, Rea GC. MORRIS: AttiKAan, Mysore P.O., S. INpta. March 18, 1940. MISCELLANEOUS NOTES 899 XI.—THE INDIAN BLACK EAGLE PCTIN ABT USS MALAY- ANS] PRICNIGHR Ti@DGS.) IN SALSETTE, -In Mr. Ali’s paper on the Birds of Bombay and Salsette a few doubtful records are given of the occurrence of this eagle in Salsette; a specimen was shot at Virar on Saturday the 14th January 1940 by Mr. G. B. Kotwal. . The head and legs were sent to the Society. A second specimen was observed by Mr. C. McCann at Andheri: on the 25th March 1940. -Bompay Nat. Hist. Society, S. H. PRATER, 6, APOLLO STREET, BOMBAY. Curator. April 16, 1940. XII.—EGGS OF YELLOW-WATTLED LAPWING [LOBIPLUVIA MALABARICA (BODD.)| With reference to Stuart Baker’s interesting note on what is known as the erythristic type of egg of this bird (Journal; VOL XkXV, P. 250), it may be of interest to record that. I have a clutch of 2 eggs of this type taken near Mysore City on 9-6-36 and another clutch of 3 from Mavinhalla at the foot of the Northern slopes of the Nilgiris taken on 23-6-38. Both these localities pro- vided eggs of the normal type also. Of a number of clutches found near Gundlupet in South Mysore all were of normal coloura- tion except one which can best be described as a medial form between the normal and the red. On p. 48 of vol. xl Mr. Betts also records the occurrence of the erythristic type in Coorg, so apparently its distribution is con- siderably wider than previously supposed. IXALHATTI, E. G. PHYTHIAN-ADAMS, NILGIRIS. Major I. A. Retired. Mlavch 5, 1940, XI1I.—PARTIAL ALBINISM IN A CHUKOR (ALECTORIS : GRAECA). (With a photo) It may interest you to know that when shooting Chukor recently in Swat I shot rather an unusual Chukor which had white feathers on its wings as follows :— Right wing—-3 outer primaries pure white. Left wing—g outer primaries pure white. Also some of the primary coverts. There was also a large patch of white feathers on the upper breast, and some of the claws on both feet were yellowish white. This bird got up three times and went forward in front of the guns before I eventually shot it and the tracer with me at once 900 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST, SOCIETY, Vol. XLI recognised it as a bird which they had seen on the same ground last year. ; I took some photos of this bird which have not yet been deve- loped; and I have skinned the left wing which I could send you if you are sufficiently imterested. I may add that the other three guns, all of whom have had great experience of chukor shooting, agreed that they had never seen a similar example of unusual colouring among chukor. HEADQUARTERS, R. C. MACNAMARA, PESHAWAR BRIGADE, Major. PESHAWAR. February 16, 1940. XIV.—THE BRONZE-CAPPED TEAL (EUNETTA FALCATA) IN THE AWIBAELA*DISTRICT. I thought that it might be of interest to your Society to record that on February 15th my wife shot a male Bronze-capped Teal (Eunetta falcata) on a hill some 20 miles north of Karnal. The bird was in company with a party of about 15 other duck which were taken to be Gadwall. One other bird was shot out of this party and at a quick glance was taken to be a female Gadwall; in view, however, of the close resemblance which the female Bronze- capped bears to the female Gadwall, it is possible that an error of identification occurred, and that the whole party were Bronze- capped Teal. The female was, unfortunately, given away and a more detailed examination was not possible. a MISCELLANEOUS NOTES 901 Stuart Baker makes no reference to this Teal as a table bird, and the above-mentioned bird, which we ate this evening, was not first class being somewhat fishy in taste. BUNGALOW 145, Re -C. NICHOLAS, AMBALA CANTT., Mayor, PUNJAB. 3rd Bn. 15th Punjab Regiment. XV.—DOES THE COMMON WHISTLING TEAL HAVE MORE THAN ONE BROOD IN THE YEAR? In looking through my Game Register, I find the following details which may be worthwhile placing on record. At Palasbani in the Kamrup District, ‘Assam, on the 3rd Nevember 1938, I was shooting duck and saw what I took to be a small group of non- descript-looking waterfowl swimming among the weeds; and as my boatmen asked me to shoot some of them for their evening meal, I fired and secured one. Much to my surprise the bird turned out to be a very young Common Whistling Teal (Dendrocygna javanica) which was still in down and quite unable to fly. There were a number of flights of mature birds of this species on the gheel I was shooting over; but this brood of youngsters I saw was un- accompanied by the parent birds who seemed to have left the young birds completely to their own devices. The brood could not have hatched before the middle of October which is surely very late in the year? It almost seems to indicate a second, if not a third brood. SYLHET, R. E. PARSONS, ASSAM. FARE. S.5.,. January 24, 1940. Indian Police. [The Common Whistling Teal commences to breed about the end of June. Most eggs are laid in July and August. The taking of young birds in down so late as November suggests either late breeding or the production of more than one brood which may occur when there is a superabundance of food supply.—Ebs. | XVI.—LATE STAY OF SNIPE. Yesterday on a tank six miles from here I saw five common snipe and shot three of them. This is a fairly hot place and the first eleven days of April were the hottest of the month 103° to 105°; the middle of the month was cool but after the 10th the maximum reached 105° on three days. Is not the 3rd May very late for snipe to be found so far south? Ramdurg is 60 miles east of Belgaum. The birds I shot weighed 5 oz. each and were very fat. RAMDURG, : G. O'BRIEN, S:. Mz. Country. | Lt.-Colonel. May 4, 1940. XLI Vol. SOCIEEY, NATURAL HiIsT. BOMBAY JOURNAL, 902 AS ‘SUOLIGH | { “ort 1 youn AvaWog ‘Indjereyg 3 ‘dO ‘taeyequg «| ‘199MO P1911IQ | ( UUIY) 099949 v9I042 UOIYIaNT ‘vueyndley ‘ajej¢ indje1 OF6I-I-0§ | WOIz SopIUI dai, | solog = ‘Tejuvpuny ‘Tea J, UOWMOD su, 6E6T-2-EZ «| «OOF | -BUT oepvjosyy vueyy | | ‘SapyoS 2 ‘UIUIET, | * MOOSO JWT | A0l(put =viposzojmna, vajvjv]d Ge let4 [ep ba To A.) oAres SS6I-01-9z ‘ayeig indvyjoy | ‘OC ‘[[iquoodg uvipuy eyy, | Sesi-4-82 | ESET) “Ad Uvyovijsy 9}¥jig | | (oT eu y7) | | *( uur’y) | | | vynpanbsanbd vjnpanbsan(p “MOOSOP ‘(H,S.9Z ‘N “DUIS | [COL | @ | 00 ofS) wojay, exe] Ot} Leg | ‘isia BueyyIey ‘sug ‘od pesura-onjg Jo Aouvs1ey suL LSBI-L-96 TEZPS uo uvsyyezey YON | | | ‘(IitUYysey) 1eseurs *MOOSOIN | * MOOSOJ ‘(Useuste WLOIJ SO[ITE UaAdS JO ‘SUISUII pllg ‘(UUIT]) 04AZD DAID VILING ‘al dyxV] 94} Jesu ‘uvysyy 6E6I-Z-6I | 9OUBISIP B OYR] VIYOHR] JOJ Nvaing [vijus) "J00D EUL | Se6T AML CQLG9| -EzeyE) THYVTY eV] ‘UB]SiUvUsTY ‘inqey *(*UUIT) VIIDAI DIIBAI UOUPIINT ‘vusyndley ‘ajejg indje1 6S6I-E~LT WOl} SIMI dIoIUL “UBSSEFT [NIOOYVZ *|eay, WOULNIOD SUT, 6S6I-Z-ZT ZLZIP | -vug oepejloeyy eueys A19A009 TS d | Susur | 0 DUISULY JO 9d¥Ig as Bae AIBAODIY JO 90VJq Aq pasury sotoeds 70 a1eq | N TOUT J f (Cee Gd ‘TX °J0A Uosy panuijuoy)) “IMOd ATIM FO NOLLVAQIN TAX MISCELLANEOUS NOTES 903 XV MIGRATION, OF | WILD FOWL: CORRIGENDA. Vole xxxiitpe NO, hs Dp. 710, For :—No. 43. 45 km. S. of Tara, lying N. of Omsk on River Irtysh 50) Aq N>, fairy E: ia ee | Read:—W. Siberia, near the mouth of the river Tara, affluent of the Intyshy, Case5O0, 30: Na74< stot, 7 2 XT Ever aie Vol soc NOw2 2 D500: For:—No. 3126. New Boukhara (Russia) ca. 40°Nx70°E. Read :—Uzbekistan, near the station Kangan. For:—No. 3624. Kzyl-Orda (approx. 40° 45’N, 65° 30/E.) Read.—W. Siberia, near the mouth of the river Tara, affluent of tie Irtysh, ca, 56° 30'N,( 74, 40°F. XIX.—CROCODILE AND WILD BOAR. A party of sportsmen, of which I was a member, was after partridge in the Ferozepur district of the Punjab close to the river Sutlej. At about 11 a.m. we put up a boar which made off in the direction of the river, and an hour later we got to the bank for lunch. We had barely sat down when the boar sneaked out of some bushes and took to the water making for a kikar tree about roo yards in. He was swimming in water about 4 feet deep and had gone some 30 yards when a crocodile suddenly rose and faced him from about to yards. The boar immediately turned towards the bank when the crocodile showed himself between him and the bank. These tactics were repeated two or three times when the boar, which was exhausted with his effort and loss of blood, sud- denly disappeared having doubtless been pulled under by his anta- gonist. Has any one else seen anything akin to this? The crocodile must have been lying up close by and doubtless discovered the condition of the boar as the water was considerably stained with blood. 1g, RaJPORE Roan, B.S. ue WwIs. DELHI. April 24, 1940. XX.—AN INGENIOUS FISH TRAP. (With a diagram). I enclose a diagram with explanation of a very cunning fish trap which is used a certain amount in the Shan States. $04 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HisT, SOCIETY, Vol. XLi For all I know it may be used in India too although I have never seen one myself exactly similar to it. It consists of a bamboo fence (the strips of bamboo being very eee GSES EE ee SS WK River Bank WW t I) SI =TtA (a) 0 > Stream close together) forming three sides of a rectangle—the fourth side being the river bank. The area of the rectangle is about 12 square yards. The bamboo fence is about four feet high and, being in shallow water, a certain amount of it protrudes out of the water-— the remainder of course being underneath the water with the bottom of the fence on the bed of the river. At point A (see diagram) there is a gap, some four feet across, made by rolling back four feet of bamboo fence to one side (point Aa). At points B and C there are lengths of ordinary string tied across from the bamboo fence on one side to the river bank on the other. Height about the same as the water level. Tied on to these lengths of string are two or three bundles of a certain green weed which is met with in this country and has a ¥ 4 “Ne at ae : F oe * are me a hie der ee an eer een ee in S08 us Mee i A c rus ‘ -— ie % ‘ oo ‘ uy ; m7 de al hae ‘ ’ A ' . F 7 7 ake : . ' - . . 7 uw * . 7 . . ‘ . bi - ; a - oan aS \ Journ., Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. Bi-cellular coconut (Cocos nucifera L.) showing the septum. Bi-cellular coconut showing the two enlarged ‘eyes’. MISCELLANEOUS NOTES 905 little red flower. Actually the bundles of weed used for this purpose have buds which have not yet flowered. In order to prevent these lengths of string from sagging due to the weight of the weed bundles pieces of string are tied on to them and stretched to the river bank (which is sloping) and fastened on to some root or tree. (I have not marked these in the diagram). Now the system on which this trap works is simplicity itself but it is nevertheless a cunning idea. The fish enter the enclosure at point A (which is of course at the downstream side of the enclosure). They go up to feed at points B and C. When there are sufficient fish inside the door, Aa is pulled over the gap by a string attached to it and operated by a man who hides behind a mass of undergrowth at point D. Fishing with rod and line is disappointing in the Shan States and although there are mahseer they will not look at artificial bait. BURMESE FRONTIER FORCE, A. G.. SANDEMAN, LasHio, N. SHAN STATES. [bie january 31, 1940. XXE—MIGRATION OF BUTTERFLIES. I have to record the following instance of a migratory flight of butterflies :— ‘Catopsilia crocale. 16 July, 39. Near Ranikhet (Kumaon). Fly- ing to west against slight wind. Approx. two butterflies in a breadth of too yards per minute.’ I watched the flight for about 1$ hours, but cannot say for how long it lasted. I caught three specimens (two 2 one d). I cannot send them as I have the wings only mounted behind celophane on cards. There is no doubt as to the identity of the species. STAFF COLLEGE, Jats B LOW EE. QUETTA. Major R..E. April 29, 1940. XXH.—A BI-CELLULAR COCONUT [COCOS NUCIFERA L.) (With a plate). The ovary of the coconut has 3 cells, two of which become abortive and only one develops. In rare instances two-celled coco- nuts are met with. In this there are within the single outer cover- ing two chambers separated by a thin septum of endocarp. Each of these chambers has its own endosperm and embryo. Of the three ‘eyes’ on the endocarp, the two, corresponding to the fully developed cells, are large and soft, while the third, corresponding 15 906 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST, SOCIETY, Vol. XLI ~ to the undeveloped cell is small and hard. If this coconut had been planted two seedlings would have been produced. Photo 1. Cross section of the nut showing the two cells with a thin shell separating the two endosperms. Photo 2. Showing two enlarged soft ‘eyes’ corresponding to the two cells, while the third remains small and hard. The specimen is preserved in the Madras Herbarium, Coimbatore. Literature. Qusumbing Eduardo (1926). Piwilip. Aoris:) 15, pp-. 37! le Garden’s Bull. 3, pp. 274-279. Garden’s Bull. 4, pp. 78-86. AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE, K. CHERIAN JACOB, COIMBATORE. LOASe, By LaS: April 20, 1940. XXII.—A NEW VARIETY OF -COCONDT arr (COCOS NUCIFERA L. VAR. SPICATA K. C. JACOB). (With a plate). A note on a peculiar coconut tree is published in the Madras Agricultural Journal, Vol. v, page 86. Its peculiarity lies in the inflorescence which, unlike that of the ordinary coconut palm, is unbranched. There is a note on the ‘suppression of spikelets in coconut spadices’ in the Garden’s Bulletin, Vol. iv, page 81. Here the author mentions that the palms which produce the monstrous inflorescences have the habit of producing such monstrosities many times during the year. Mention is also made by the same author of a side branch which is occasionally found in these monstrous inflorescences. The present writer had occasion to study palms which produce these monstrous inflorescences in more detail in a garden in Coim- batore. In this garden there are half a dozen such palms. The occurrence of a side branch is noticed in some inflorescences. From the history of these palms, it is noted that the production of this abnormal spike-like inflorescence is not a freak, but a heritable character. Several similar instances are also noted in_ other parts of this Province. Hence this new type of coconut palm with the spike-like inflorescence is separated as a new variety, Cocos nucifera L. var. spicata K. C. Jacob. In the light of this knowl- edge, the description of the spadix of the species, Cocos nucifera L. may be altered to ‘usually panicled, sometimes spiked’. On account of the spike-like nature of the panicle, there is not enough room for the development of a large number of nuts. Nevertheless, this variety produces innumerable female flowers (potential nuts), which character may be utilized with advantage by coconut palm breeders. u0s09 Bw YAM ayidg ‘g ‘poyluseum ‘y se “gq = ‘aoUadSeIOyUI SuNnoX ‘qooef "dQ “NM DipIids “1eA “UUITY Daafianu soI0D JO adUadSaIOYU] a . 20S “ISIT “JEN Avqmog ‘‘uimor Journ., Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. Branched Areca Palm (Areca catechu L.), Kallar Gardens. MISCELLANEOUS NOTES . 907 Literature. Cocke, sBombay Fiora, Vol; Il, p. 312: Madras Agri. Journal, Vol. V, p. 86. Garden’s Bulletin, Vol. IV, p. 81. Anmrlard. Bot. Buitenzorg, Vol. XXXII (1923), .p. 24. AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE, K. CHERIAN JACOB, COIMBATORE. L.Ag., F.L.S, April 20, 1940. XXIV.—STEM FASCIATION IN THE ARECA PALM (ARECA CATECHU 1.) (With a plate). Stem fasciation in the Areca palm is a rare phenomenon. An interesting instance of it was noticed in an Areca palm garden at Kallar, Coimbatore District. The palm is about 55 years old and 65 feet in height. At this height it has produced g branches, all in one plane. All the branches, except one which is dead, though much thinner than the parent stem, are growing well, producing flowers and nuts regularly. These branches are about 15 years old and 8 feet in height. There is no evidence of insect attack or other disease likely to have caused this fasciation. The hill tribes of the Lower Nilgiris, the Irulars, hold this plant in veneration, and make offerings for its blessings. AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE, K. CHERIAN JACOB, COIMBATORE. TEAS cu SS, February 20, 1936. XXV.—PRELIMINARY NOTES ON A RECENT BOTANICAL TOUR. @OAMRABAD- POREST, RESERVE, FH. E.. H. THE NIZAM’S DOMINIONS, HYDERABAD (Dvy.). (With 1 plate). Having studied in some detail ('), the flora of the Mulug Taluqa of the Warangal District which is country typical of the Telangana side, it was proposed to study the vegetation of Amrabad Taluga in the Mahboobnagar District, situated at a distance of 116 miles south of Hyderabad city. It is 1,913 ft. high and is surrounded by eight hill ranges which extend up to the river Krishna. The only Botanical work which helps one to get some knowledge of the vegetation of Amrabad is the one by Partridge (*), a forest officer, who does not seem to have spent much time in the study of the vegetation on this side, as is evident from his description of the localities of the plants he has recorded. In his 908 fOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XLi book he mentions Amrabad about five times, and leaves out many important and prominent forest trees of this region. To take only one example, he does not mention the occurrence in great abundance of Bauhinia Vahhi W. & A. in Amrabad. Salim Ali (°) in his more recent Ornithological Survey of Hyderabad gives a brief but in- formative and interesting note about Mananur and Farahabad in which he mentions a few important and dominant forest trees and shrubs in these places, and he evidently does so because of the intimate relation of bird-life with vegetation. The author with his colleagues in the Botany Department of the Osmania University undertook a botanical tour to Amrabad Forest Reserve in February, 1940. Making Mananur the head-quarters, Farahabad and Amrabad proper were visited. The latter is not described in detail here as the stay there was short and the collec- tions do not include any thing new to Mananur or Farahabad. MANANDR. Mananur is situated on the Amrabad Plateau at an altitude of 2,059 ft., and a distance of 3111 miles from Hyderabad city. The soil for the most part is laterite and the country is mostly hilly. Nearing Mananur one sees luxuriant tree vegetation, otherwise about hundred miles of the journey is frightfully monotonous. Considering the vastness of the land the cultivated portion is sur- prisingly small. Along the roadsides Cassia auriculata Linn., Anona squamosa Linn., and Wrightia tomentosa Roem. & Sch. amongst shrubs, and Melia Azadirachta Linn., Acacia spp. amongst trees are repeatedly noticed. Toddy palms occur and their appear- ance is a Clear sign of nearing a habitation. While climbing the first hill range on which Mananur is situated we came across wild trees of Moringa pterigosperma Gaertn. (Plate I, photo 1). Mananur forest was studied in some detail by paying visits to Omamaheshwaram, 4$ miles from the traveller’s bungalow. One has to cover this distance on foot. ‘After walking a few furlongs from this bungalow one enters the forest to climb a hill. Here and there are thick Bamboo clumps (Dendrocalamus strictus Nees, Plate.T, photo -2).° The hillsides are- strewn? with large. stones, walking on which is very tiresome. They are cut across by narrow nallahs (streams). Near the last nallah before we began climbing up the rugged steps to reach the plateau we came across wild mango trees of enormous size. Terminalia spp. (Maddi chettu etc.), Hardwickia binata Roxb. (Ippa, Anjan), Pterocarpus Marsupium Roxb. (Biasal), Bassia latifoha Roxb. (Mhowa) are some of the dominant trees in this region. Tectona grandis Linn. (Teak) is not so plentiful as in Farahabad, and is of a stunted growth. A few furlongs brought us to the plateau with its seattered and scrubby vegetation. Thorny shrubs of the Rubiaceae, Euphorbiaceae and other families are abundant. After crossing the plateau we came to the edge of the hill with a steep valley to our right, facing Pedda-Omamaheshwaram which was our destination. We care- fully went down hill and arrived at the dripping rocks. To us the interest lay in the vegetation of these rocks and not in the Journ., Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. ve. nd rest Reser ad Fo Sayeedud-Din—Botanical Tour to Amrab of article. e »e SE 10n planat x for e Rs a aes et | MISCELLANEOUS. NOTES 909 famous temple which is carved out of the rock in this region. Ja the valley lofty trees with the dominant Bauhinia Vahlii W. & A. could be seen. The dripping rocks were covered with liverworts, mosses and ferns which will be included in the detailed list of collections at the end. FARAHABAD. Twelve miles south of Mananur les Farahabad on another plateau rising above Amrabad Plateau at an altitude of 2,800 ft. The forest consists of mixed deciduous species as in the Mananur forest, but considerably thicker, and containing a good deal of more bamboo and teak. The thickest bamboo forest is met with near the Chinchuar Hut (Chinchuars otherwise known as Bhils are a primitive tribe), 5 miles from the Farahabad traveller’s bungalow. Coming out of this thicket one has to walk in about a foot thick layer of the fallen leaves of Bauhinia Vahlii W. & A. Tectona grandis Linn. is more plentiful than in the Mananur forest. Buchan- ania latifolia Roxb. and Dalbergia latifolia Roxb. which were very scarce at Mananur are widespread in this region. Mundulea suberosa Benth. in its pinkish bloom was a striking little tree near the roadsides. The collections which have been so far identified include :— I. Flowering Plants. (a) Trees: Boswellia serrata Roxb. Mangifera indica Linn. Feronia elephantum Correa. Diospyros Melanoxylon Roxb. Aegle Marmelos Correa. Diospyros tomentosa Roxb. Cassia Fistula Linn. Terminalia tomentosa W. & A. Butea frondosa Roxb. Alangium Lamarckii Thwaites. Bombax malabaricum DC. Atalantia monophylla Corvea. Tectona grandis Linn. Buchanania latifolia Roxb. Murraya Koenigii Linn. Chloroxylon Swietenia DC Ponganuia glabra Vent. Bassia latifolia Roxb. Hardwickia binata Roxb. Anogeissus latifolia Wall. Dalbergia latifolia Roxb. Ailanthus excelsa Roxb. Strychnos potatorum Linn. Phyllanthus Emblica Linn. Stephegyne parvifolia Worth. (b) Shrubs : Zizyphus Ocnoplia Mill. Gymnosporia montana Roxb. Grewia hirsuta Vahl. Zizyphus trinervia Roxb. Cassia auriculata Linn. Grewia pilosa Lamkk. Dodonaea viscosa Linn. Capparis horrida Linn. Randia dumetorum Lamk. Helicteres Isora Linn. Andrographis paniculata Linn. Pavetta indica Linn. Phyllanthus reticulatus Poir. Vitex Negundo Linn. (c) Herbs: Cardiospermum Halicacabum Jinn. Plumbago seylanica Linn. Blepharis molluginifolia Pers. Striga spp. Sansiviera zeylanica Willd. (d) Lofty Climbers : Bauhinia Vahlii W. & A. Argyreia speciosa Sweet. Hiptage Madablota Gaertn. . ; 910 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST, SOCIETY, Vol. XLI (e) Parasites : Loranthus longiflorus Desr. Loranthus elasticus Desr. on Buchanania latifolia, on Bassia latifolia. Bassia latifolia and others. Viscum articulatum Burm. on Diospyros tomentosa. II. Bryophytes. (a) Anthoceros sp. (b) Moss? IIt. Pteridophytes. (a) Selaginella sp. (b) Ferns: L, Adiantum caudatum Linn. 2. Cheilanthus mysorensis Wall. 3. Actiniopteris dichotoma Forsk. 4. Nephrolepis sp. REFERENCES. 1. Sayeedud-Din, M.—Some of the Common Flowering Plants of the Hyderabad State; their distribution, economic and medicinal importance. PAS2Bs,. SCs) ViOlciie INOw 1, toss Sayeedud-Din, M.—Further Contribution to some of the Common Flower- ing Plants of the Hyderabad State; their distribution and economic importance. Jour. Bomb. Nat. Hist. Soc., Vol. xl, No. 2, 1938. 2. Partridge, E. A.—Forest Flora of H. E. H. The Nizam’s Dominions (Hyderabad-Deccan)—10911. 3. Ali, Salim.—The Hyderabad State Ornithological Survey, Part I, Jour. Bomb. Nat. Hist. Soc., Vol. xxxvi, No. 2, 1933. EXPLANATION OF Pate I. Photo 1.—Panoramic view of a hill range on the way to Mananur. The arrow showing the site of the wild trees of Moringa pterigosperma Gaertn. Photo 2.—A bamboo clump. Note the scattered stones. M. SYEEDUD-DIN, Prof. of Botany. OsMANIA_ UNIVERSITY, HyDERABAD, DEccaN. January, 1940. PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY V. M. PHILIP AT THE DIOCESAN PRESS, 18 CHURCH ROAD, VEPERY, MADRAS EDITORS: H. M. MCGUSTY, J. F. CAIUS AND S. H. PRATER, 6 APOLLO STREET, FORT, BOMBAY " ak GAME-BIRDS OF INDIA, BURMA & CEYLON. — BY vee | a: E. C. STUART BAKER, CLE, 0.B.E,, F.LS., F.Z.S., M.B.0.U., H.P.A.O.U. Imperial 8vo. Half bound. VOL. Ill. PHEASANTS AND BUSTARD- QUAIL. About 320, pp. With 12 Coloured Plates and numerous Black and White Plates. Price to Members who have not ae Vols.7 1.1L eS: .. 4 1-15-0O=Rs. 23 Members who have purchased one : of the above Volumes Sas 10-0=Rs. 20 Members who have ere both the above Volumes ... £ 1- 5-O=Rs. 17 Price to Non-members. : Two Guineas=Rs. 28 Packing and postage extra. COMMON INDIAN BIRDS. ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR. ALBUM. Coloured illustrations of 196 Common Indian Birds _ neatly bound in soft rexine as a Volume of reference. Size 11 x 93 inches. _ Price to Members -... Rs. 32 Posiaee » Non-members ... Rs. 40 Packing extra. Apply to:— The Bombay Natural History Society, 6, Apollo Street, BOMBAY. Ae) en) oy el uty Wie a i ae) SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION LIBRARIES IMA 3 9088 01