722 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XV 



You say that your analysis of the yam is ' a general average .' Those I have 

 examined have been one or two tubers of a distinct species, and I find the 

 average nitrogenous matter of some thirty specimens to be higher than the 

 potato. These results will shortly be published in an Agricultural Ledger." 



In saying that the analysis of the yam was " a general average, " it ought to 

 have been made clearer that this remark alluded to the analysis of the potato 

 recorded immediately above and not to Dioscorea damona. 



I need scarcely say I am very much indebted to Mr. Hooper for giving me 

 an opportunity of amending my note and also for sending me his interesting 

 comparative analysis of the dry root of Dioscorea damona and potato. 



The results of his examination of these various yams, which are to appear in 

 an Agricultural Ledger, will be awaited with interest. 



G. M. RYAN, I.F.S. 



Thana District, l\th April, 1904. 



No. XXII— SHOOTING NOTES IN CANNANORE. 



I append a list of the game birds that have fallen to my gun this season 

 around Cannanore. The backwater here with its many winding waterways 

 opening out into jheellike expanses every here and there, and bordered with 

 lowlying marsh land, appears at first sight to offer peculiar attractions to 

 wild fowl, and it is therefore remarkable that practically none visit us. The 

 whole system is tidal, and many of the water courses run empty with the 

 ebb tides. Owing to these conditions, the water is brackish, and water weeds 

 receive little encouragement to flourish, and it is possibly to both of these 

 causes that one may attribute the paucity of species and numbers. During 

 the whole season I have seen less than a dozen duck, and all I saw appeared 

 to be of one species — whistling teal, I am told — but 1 got no chance of sub- 

 stantiating this information. The season is admitted by all, including our one 

 and only local shikari, to have been an indifferent one, snipe being not nearly 

 so plentiful as usual. 



•These included 3 Columba intermedin (The Indian Blue Rock), 2 Totunus glottis (Greenshauk) 

 and 1 Gallinago gallinala (Jacksnipe). 



F. WALL, Capt., I.M.S. 

 (J annanore, 20th April, 1904. 



