491 



:NriSCELLANEOUS NOTES. 



\o. I.— A FIGHT BETWEEN A DOG AND A rORCUPlNE. 



I am sending you an account of the curious result of an encounter 

 between a dog and a ix)rcupine. The other morning my servants told me 

 that there had been a tight on the road between a dog and a porcupine, 

 that the porcupine had driven a quill into the dog's skull, and that the dog 

 maddened with pain had run into my compound and plunged into an open 

 garden reservoir and died there. True enough I saw a large dog with a 

 porcupine's quill firmly imbedded in the skull just above the eye. The 

 evidence of there having been a light on the road was the sweeper's state- 

 ment that he had seen a ntunber of quills lying on the road, but these had 

 been removed before I could see them. However much the servants may 

 have drawn on their imagination it seems clear that the dog was killed by 

 the porcupine and it would be interesting if any of your readers could 

 enlighten me as to the porcupine's mode of attack. 



1{. D. MACLEOD, i.o.s. 



MUTTKA, 1*-^ AuffUst 1917, 



No. II.— BUFFALO IN THE NICOBAR ISLANDS, 



In that interesting and informing book, Ball's Jungle Life in India, 

 mention is made of the buli'alo which were found by the author in a wild 

 state on the Island of Kamorta in 1869. 



These buffalo are supposed to be descended from tame animals imported 

 during the earliest European occupation of the Island, that by the Jesuit 

 Missionaries, about the year 1711. 



Two or three years ago an officer of my acquaintance saw buffalo on this 

 Island and endeavoured to get a shot at one, but failed owing to want of 

 knowledge of the locality and the short stay, a few hours only, of the 

 steamer. 



It would be very interesting if some visitor to the Island could obtain 

 heads ot a bull and a cow for the Society collection. Probably the horns will 

 exceed in measurement those of the Indian wild buffalo of the present day 

 as the animals can have been but seldom molested, and, having run wild 

 for close on 200 years, have probably reverted to type, the original wild 

 stock. 



I{, W. BURTON, Lt.-Col. 

 Bombay, August 1917, 



No. III.— NOTES FROM THE ORIENTAL SPORTING MAGAZINE, 



NEW SERIES, 1869 TO 1879. 



A perusal of the Oriental Sporting Magazine for the ten years 1869 to 

 1879 furnishes material for notes on various subjects, and these are here 

 collected as being likely to interest some of the readers of our Journal. 



WEIGHT.S AND MeASUREMENX.S OF AnIMALS. 



Tigers : Deccan Ranger (Colonel H. Eraser), who shot for many years 

 in the Hyderabad Dominions, came to the same conclusion as the present 

 writer as to the measurement being an insufficient guide to size ; and, 

 during the last few years of his shooting days, weighed all tigers killed by 

 him. 



