256 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XIX. 



Total number of scales in vertebral row 49, of which* 17 or 18 were on tail. 

 Number of scales across back 17 rows, of which the outermost two or three 

 rows were very obtusely keeled. 



I tied it to a peach tree on the top of a small bank in my garden giving it a 

 sufficient length of rope to allow it to get comfortably into the bank. It set to 

 work at once to dig and I left it. When I returned I found it had slipped its 

 rope and was out of reach under my flower bed ! I left it there for the night 

 and then dug it out. It had burrowed horizontally a distance of about 10 feet. 

 One evening I took it down to a small stream at the foot of my garden and it 

 drank greedily and then to my surprise half waded and half swam across. I 

 meant to have experimented further on its swimming powers, but that night it 

 escaped and left its rope hanging over the bough of a small tree to the foot of 

 which I had tied it. How it escaped is a marvel to me. I had tied its rope 

 once round its body just behind its forelimbs tightly, then a separate loop 

 round each shoulder tied in a knot again over its back ; and yet it had gone 

 and the loops were left just as I had tied them. It had evidently had a pretty 

 severe struggle to get free as most of the bark had been scraped off the 

 tree. As a climber it was most agile and when once on a bough was very 

 difficult to detach. It would roll itself into a ball round the bough, and even 

 after its tail had been uncoiled by main force, it still clung on tightly with its 

 long fore claws hooked over the bough and its stumpy hind feet pressed against 

 it. This species did not walk as in the illustration of Manis javaniea in 

 Blanford's work referred to. It walked on the knuckles of its fore feet with 

 the claws turned vertically up, not on the outer edge of the foot. 



It would be interesting to get further information from Sylhet and Tipperali 

 either as to the occurrence of both species from those localities or otherwise, 

 and also from Karennee, I do not think that Manis javaniea occurs near here 

 as the Chins do not distinguish two kinds, but of course that is no criterion : 

 and both species may occur. 



Major Wall's specimen from the base of the Naga hills seems to preclude any 

 theory as to M. aurita. being a more mountain loving form. 



F. E. W. VENNING. 

 Haka, Chin Hills, 

 27th December 1908. 



No. V.-THE JUNGLE CROW (CORVUS MACRORUYNCHUS). 



The Jungle Crow (^Corvus macroi-hynchus), which in the Punjab and North- 

 western Frontier Province is a partial migrant visiting the plains only in winter 

 and breeding from 6,000 to 12,000 feet, is normally abundant at this season in 

 the plains of Bannu. Arriving suddenly about the end of October or beginning 

 of November it leaves gradually from early in April to the middle of May and 



* It was diflBcult to decide which scale to consider the last on the Ijody and which the 

 first on the tail owiny to the creature's propensity for rolling into a tight ball whenever 

 touched or even approached. 



