JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, 1800. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



BRANCHING TREE FERNS. 



In the Journal of tbe Bombay Natural History Society, Vol. iii, p. 250 (1888), 

 Mrs.W. E. Hart contributes a valuable note on some Branching Palms. Is it 

 generally known that Tree-ferns are also branched occasionally and in a similar 

 manner? Last October I spent an hour at least during a beat for deer under 

 the trunk of a large Tree-fern on the Rungneet Tea Estate below Darjiling, at 

 about 5,000 feet elevation above the sea, the fern being about 30 feet in height 

 and bifurcated at about 6 feet from the top, the two bifurcations being of equal 

 size and height and lying very close together, and each bearing a perfect crown 

 of fronds. I am informed by a lady resident of Darjiling that there is another bifur- 

 cated Tree-fern on the Tukvar Tea Estate, and still a third on the road down to 

 Tukvar from Darjiling, so that abnormal examples appear to be by no means 

 rare in the Darjiling district, though the one briefly described above is the only 



one seen by me. 



LIONEL DE NICEVILLE, F.E.S., CM.Z.S, &c. 

 1st February 1S90. 



SNIPE SITTING IN THE OPEN. 



Rowing down tbe Nageshwari River to-day, I was a little puzzled by a 

 group of birds gathered about two scanty tussocks of about half-a-dozen rushes 

 apiece growing on an otherwise bare gravel-bank. 



I fired into them and picked up three "full" snipe (not jacks or pintails), and a 

 fourth ran into some long grass a dozen yards away, and was not bagged. 



A little lower down a fifth was put up from a similar place. 



The same thing once happened to me in Gujarat ; the four snipe sitting on close- 

 cropped grass sward beside a tank at Harsol ; and several pairs and single birds 

 on equally exposed turf all round the tank. 



I have seen other instances, less noticeable, in India, but never at home. 



Camp Dasgaum, 17th January 1890. W. F. SINCLAIR. 



NOTE ON LOCUSTS IN INDIA* 

 The presence this year of swarms of locusts in part of Sind, Gujarat, Rajputana 

 and the Punjab, affords an opportunity of elucidating several of the points which 



* This note is compiled from a large series of reports, chiefly from those contained 

 in the Records of the Revenue and Agricultural Department of the Government of 

 India. These sources of information will be fully quoted in the general report 

 which is in preparation ; in the present note, therefore, though the actual words of 

 the original writers have often been used, it has been thought best not to give refer- 

 ences which would necessarily be extensive. It should be noticed, however, that in 

 the case of the Bombay invasion of 1SS2 83 (he excellenl reports of Mr. J. Nugcni 

 have been almost exclusively used. 



