Ic4 



BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 



The Wild Dog and the Tiger. — I found that the old story of wild doss killing 

 tigers existed in the following form in the Surat jungles. We were talking of a 

 pack of eleven wild dogs that had been killing a sambur close by, and I said to my 

 shikarri, " Shoot them if you can." " No," said the Yasava Patel of the village, 

 "these dogs are my gods : they kill tigers for me." I asked him further, and he 

 said that the dogs— a large pack of them— tree a tiger, then two dogs mount 

 guard, and the rest go away hunting;; then two more come and relieve guard, and 

 so on, till the tiger dies of hunger in the tree. ( It is in Rice's Indian Game 

 from Quail to Tiger that a similar account is given, and a still more wonderful 

 yarn of the tiger dying in the tree, afraid to come down because one wild dog 

 had got spiked on a piece of wood below, and months afterwards the two 

 skeletons were found — the tiger's in the tree, and the dog's sticking on the 

 spike at the foot on the ti'ee !) 



Carbolized Arsenical Soap. — Instead of putting camphor in arsenical soap, let me 

 recommend that one ounce of pure carbolic acid be added to every pound of the 

 mixture. This carbolised stuff if applied fresh to the lips, &c, of a skin, will 

 prevent all decomposition. This is much better than the old arsenical soap, and I 

 beg to present the suggestion to all shikarries. 



PARASITIC TREES. 



On the south side of Chakdara, an outlying Dnng village, some 20 to 30 miles 

 east of Bardoli, in the Surat District, is to be found a rather curious case of 

 parasitism. 



The parasite is a Sterculia urens (Karaia kangdoli), and the victim is a Schlei- 

 cheria trijuga (Kosim). The Kosim is a large bifurcated tree, old and hollow. A 

 branch on one of these forks was cut off. On the stump of the branch a young 

 Karaia established itself, and at the present time has attained about the size of 

 the original branch, with the appearance of being a regular graft. It flowers 

 profusely, and did so when first found three seasons ago. Its present thickness is 

 considerably greater than the head of the thickest headed man, with his pagri on. 

 The pagri itself is about the diameter of the parasite, which is seated at a height of 

 twelve feet or more. 



The Ficus family of course are, without exception, so far as I know them, the 

 lowest of greedy parasites, but though the Sterculia has a suspicious viscid and 

 plastic appearance in its manner of flowing over inconvenient stones, in its throwing 

 out of large knobs, and in covering up wounds, yet it is not often found parasite 

 at least in the Dangs, and the present instance is perhaps worth recording. It 

 would be interesting to know where the roots are now, how the Sterculia will 

 manage, as its trunk grows inconveniently large; and whether it gets blown down 

 along with the Kosim, or succeeds in establishing itself in the ground down the 

 interior of its supporter. The tree is just on the west side of the road, at the 

 point where it begins to descend from the plateau to the river bed. 



E.G. 



Madias, Eundall's Road, 17th April 1889, 



