386 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XVI. 



hind quarters. Occasionally one comes across strange happenings with regard 

 to animals tied up. On one occasion a goat tied up for a panther was killed 

 by a porcupine, perhaps by accidental collision. A friend of mine found one 

 of his buffaloes gored to death by a bison, the ground all round being trampled 

 by the enraged wild beast. 



Since writing these notes I have received the Journal for June, 1904, where 

 I find several interesting questions discussed concerning big game. There is 

 nothing new in Colonel Stewart's note regarding the original home of the tiger. 

 I think it is generally accepted that the tiger i3 an immigrant into India from 

 northern regions. The animal's impatience of the heat of the sun in southern 

 latitudes, and habit of lying immersed in water in the heat of the day — the 

 only feline addicted to this — point to a northern origin. At the same time it 

 may be doubted if the southerly immigration of the tiger has taken place as 

 recently as Colonel Stewart appears to indicate. Tigers abound in Java and 

 Sumatra, and must have presumably got there before those islands became 

 separated from the mainland. This may have been within recent geological 

 but not historical times. Another contributor writes on "Tiger versus Bear, " 

 and asks if there are other instances on record of encounters between these 

 animals, of which he cites an example. I do not think such combats are un- 

 common, and a tiger should have little difficulty in disposing of the small Malay 

 bear, when he is able to kill and devour the much more formidable black bear 

 of the Indian plains. Sanderson, in his " Thirteen years among the wild leasts of 

 India,'''' tells us of a tiger which was in the habit of preying on the hapless bruin 

 in preference to other game. In the Melghat Forest, North Berar, in 1890, 

 the skin of a bear was brought to me, quite fresh, with many holes in it in- 

 flicted by a tiger. The villagers said there had been a prolonged combat 

 between the two animals, and the bear managed to get away, but so badly 

 wounded that it was easily disposed of by the inhabitants who had been at- 

 tracted to the spot by the roarings and howlings of the combatants. In 1896 I 

 found on the top of a hill near Fort Mahor, Hyderabad, the remains of two 

 bears which had been killed and devoured by a pair of tigers. Tigers will 

 resort to strange diet when hard put to it, and the hairy pelt of a bear must be 

 difficult to digest. I have found the remains of crabs and once of a large 

 python eaten by a tiger, and one frequently finds porcupine quills embedded 

 in the paws. One large tiger I shot had several suppurating sores on the 

 back of the neck from which porcupine quills were extracted. This looked as 

 if he had been rolling on his victim, although my shikaris would have it 

 that the porcupine had shot the quills at his enemy, like arrows from a bow ! 



R. Q. BURTON, Major, 

 Poona, February $th, 1905. 94th Russell's Infantry. 



No. XXII.— DOUBLE-HEADED SNAKES. 

 No doubt everyone in India is familiar with the so-called double-headed 

 snakes which many jugglers include among their stock in trade. The snakes 



