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MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 



No. I.— A MARK ON THE SKIN OF A MAN-EATING TIGER. 



In 1894 a tigress with a three-quarter grown male cub was the scourge of 

 the valleys at the foot of the western slope of the Amboli Gh/it in the Sawant- 

 vadi State. The tigress killed and mauled many men and women, but, instead 

 of eating, used to toss them over to the cub, who always preferred human 

 to animal flesh. I went out several times after the pair, and though my 

 anxiety was naturally to bag the tigress, that of the villagers was that I should 

 kill the cub, for, they said, the mottier will not attack human beings if there 

 is no one to eat them. The villagers declared that the cub was born 

 with the propensity for man-eating, and assured me that when it was killed, 

 I should find the " man-enting mark" upon it. I asked what this might be, 

 and was told a distinct cross on one side of the body, generally the left side. 

 I laughed at this iden, but found that it obtained universal credence. 



On the 1st January, 1895, I shot the cub, and as the beaters came up, the 

 headmea Slid to me, " Now, Saheb, we shall see if the inen-eater's mark is 

 there or not." The cub was lying on his left side, where he had fallen to 

 one bullet. We turned him over, and, sure enough, there was the mark. I 

 send you herewith a photograph in which it is distinctly visible. It will be 

 interesting to know if any of your readers have had experience of similar 

 marking, or a similar belief ; the villagers could not have saen the mark, yet 

 six weeks before I killed the beast they told me I should find it. Is it possible 

 that the superstition is confined to the jungle country bordering upon Roman 

 Catholic Goa ? The villagers were Hindus and not Christians. 



1 shot the tigress afterwards, but that is another story, 



W, B. FERRIS, LiEUT,-C0L. 

 Sadea, lOth October, 1898. 



No. II.— A BUSH QUAIL AND RAIN QUAIL LAYING IN THE 



SAME NEST. 

 On the 12th August I found a quail's nest containing twelve eggs. Six were 

 white and oval and six were pointed and yellowish-brown, evidently a Jungle 

 Bush Quail {PercUcula asiaiica) and a Rain Quail {Coturnix coromandelica), 

 laying in the same nest. I have since then visited the nest and have on 

 three occasions seen the bush quail leave it. The nest was fairly well made 

 of grass, under a dried-up piece of indigo about a foot in height. There 

 were often a pair of rain quail near the nest, that is to say, about twenty or 

 thirty yards away ; but I never saw any at the nest itself. This fact of two 

 different species of quail lajing in the same nest must be unusual. 



B. C. HARINOTON, Lieut., R.A., 



Hyderabad Contingent, 

 BoLARUM, Deccan, September, 1898, 



