SOME NEW BOOKS 



The Naturalist in India. 



A Naturalist on the Prowl, or in the Jungle. By Eha. Svo. Pp. xii., 257. 

 London : Thacker & Co., 1894. Price 8s. 6d. 



" For their first introduction to the public," writes the author in his 

 preface, " these papers are indebted to the Times of India.''' The 

 editor of that newspaper is clearly a discerning person, and the 

 author certainly cannot be mistaken in thinking that he " detected 

 on the kind countenance of the public " much approbation of the 

 articles — at least that is our opinion after reading this charming 

 volume. "Eha," whoever he may be, has clearly some leisure which 

 he has well spent in communing with nature in India. Nature in 

 India is much more of a " rum'un " than she is at home here. She 

 has produced, for instance, a serpent, the King Cobra; this Ophiophagiis 

 — whose bad example of eating other snakes has been recently 

 followed at the Zoo by the Boa, proving the adage that evil com- 

 munications corrupt good manners — is one of the few wild beasts that 

 will deliberately go out of its way to attack a man. The power of 

 the human eye may be a delusion, but there are not many wild 

 animals that take the initiative in declaring war upon our species. 

 The particular Hamadryad upon which nearly a chapter of the book 

 is written was discovered coiled up upon a tree, and was at first 

 asserted by the natives to be a Python. The reason for this varnish- 

 ing of the truth was that the native preferred that "Eha" should 

 dislodge the brute. A glance at the face of the reptile at once 

 dispelled the python theory. "A python's eyes look nowhere in 

 particular," we are told, " this creature's eye rnet mine with a trucu- 

 lent stare like nothing I had seen before." Some more information 

 about the Hamadryad is given Avhich runs as follows : " On the way 

 I learned some things about t-lie King Cobra wliich are not generally 

 known. So swift is it that, when it pursues, escape by flight is 

 impossible. When it has caught a man it swallows him whole, then 

 climbing a tree, it winds itself round the trunk and tightens its coils 

 until the man is crushed all to nothing in its inside. Thus it digests 

 him. Facts like these are becoming increasingly rare in books. You 

 must glean them among the simple folk who spend their lives with 

 the beasts of the field and from infancy hold converse with nature's 

 charms and view her stores unrolled. I have gathered many such 

 very wonderful and known to few." It is not often, we must add in 

 bare justice, that " Eha " is so newly-humorous as in the above 

 passage. 



A chapter entitled "The Voice of Mirth" gives the author the 

 opportunity of saying something about the Cicada. The present 

 writer has himself heard the " protracted ear-rending scream " of this 

 insect, which is far worse than that of any other insect known to 



