no 



BARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



SOME NOTES FROM AN INDIAN JUNGLE. 



THINKING, perhaps, some notes on the natural 

 history of the jungles of Southern India would 

 be read with interest by stay-at-home English 

 naturalists, I take my pen to put down such random 

 recollections as occur to me of a couple of years' 

 experience in the wildest parts of the "impenetrable 

 jungle" of Travancore and Cochin. Unfortunately, 

 before I left the country, I had the misfortune to 

 lose all my collections of skins and insects, and all 

 my notes and diaries, by the accidental burning down 

 of my hut, or bungalow as Anglo-Indians call a 

 house of any sort ; so I have to trust to memory, and 

 can only make my remarks very general and un- 

 scientific. 



The jungles of the far South of India are not half 

 explored yet. The only English who penetrate 

 them are hard-working coffee-planters and equally 

 hard-working government surveyors. Both shoot 

 and hunt when they get Jhe opportunity with all 

 the ardour of their race, but I never came across 

 a specimen of either class who knew or cared any- 

 thing about natural history by itself. Consequently 

 there is a great field open for the first enterprising 

 naturalist who goes into the jungles to devote his 

 time to the pursuit of specimens and skins. 



My own work left me as little time as most other 

 Englishmen, and all I could do was to carry my gun 

 with me whenever the opportunity offered, and snatch 

 any spare moments I could get for a ramble with the 

 net and collecting-boxes. 



The gun used to bring me in some beautiful and 

 strange birds. In the early morning, when the white 

 mist lay thick and still in the hollows and ravines, 

 I used to sally forth into the deep shadow of the 

 gloomy jungle, where the sun rarely penetrates to 

 the ground, the branches overhead are matted so 

 close, and for a time nothing could be heard but the 

 dripping of the dew from the leaves overhead. The 

 woodpeckers were usually the first birds to move in 

 the morning, their shrill laughter echoing through 

 the silent woods in a wild, unearthly way. Of 

 these there were four or five species, ranging in size 

 from a diminutive little black and white bird the 

 size of a sparrow, to a splendid great species the size 

 of a crow, with a body of crow-like blackness and 

 a flaming crimson crest. Then when the sun got 

 higher other birds appeared : little green and yellow 

 finches, generally in families of thirteen or fifteen, 

 always of odd numbers, like most other flocks of 

 birds, and a handsome black bird of the thrush tribe, 

 all in black, with two sky-blue spots on either 

 shoulder. I never saw this bird except in the deepest 

 jungle, but there its low, mournful whistle on being 

 disturbed was common enough. 



Another handsome bird, a later riser, was the 

 Indian ground thrush. His plumage was very strik- 



ing, green and grey above, and white, fading into 

 warm pink, below, with a brown head and a black 

 band running down either side of his neck. He 

 only appeared in the monsoon, or wet season, and 

 was perpetually engaged in searching for snails, 

 especially a handsome red snail with a black shell, 

 which, as Mr. Weller says, was his "particular 

 wanity." 



At mid-day, the tree tops would be full of pigeons 

 of several varieties, most noticeable amongst which 

 were the beautiful little green and claret-coloured 

 fruit-doves as we called them, the native name being, 

 I think, " Sona Kabooter." Sometimes I have been 

 standing under a spreading fig-tree out of the mid-day 

 heat, when a flock of these birds have flown up and 

 after a turn or two round the neighbourhood settled 

 in the branches overhead, but although I have 

 watched them carefully, so well did their colours 

 harmonize with the pale green fig-leaves, that I was 

 quite unable to make out a single bird until a few 

 minutes' patience was rewarded by hearing the figs 

 come pattering down to the ground, and seeing the 

 birds plucking at the ripe bunches. 



All the hottest hours of the day the nullahs, or 

 watercourses, were tenanted by brilliant little blue 

 kingfishers, who flashed about like living gems, or 

 sat in couples on the slender green bamboos bending 

 over some still pool, perhaps never before visited by 

 any human being until I broke in upon its solitude. 

 In the shallow, small grey herons stood sleepily upon 

 one leg, watching the small fish and frogs below, and 

 a few species of stints and snipe ran along the margins 

 in their usual nervous manner. 



And then the sun went down behind the forest- 

 covered mountains in the west, the pigeons went 

 away to roost, and the other birds hid themselves 

 away in the deepest thickets, and the day's work for 



the collector was over. 



Lester Arnold. 



LIST OF ASSISTING NATURALISTS. 

 [Continued from p. 52.] 



Kent. 



Tunbridge Wells. Thomas Walker, 2 Beulah Road. 



rhancrogamic and Cryptogenic Botany. 



Middlesex. 

 Tottenham. John Walker, 5 Talbot Road. Botany. 



Nottinghamshire. 



Nottingham. C. T. Musson, 68 Goldsmith Street. 

 British land and fresh-water Mollusca, Geology. 



Nottingham. B. S. Dodd, 33 Elm Avenue, Sher- 

 wood Rise. British Mollusca, both land, fresh- 

 water, marine, and British marine algv. 



