MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 769 



tracking, but does Mr. Eardley Wilmot seriously believe that a tiger which 

 has left a kill in the early ujorning and retired into the hill several miles 

 away to lie up for the day, scents out its early morning track when return- 

 ing to the kill probably at le;ist twelve hours after V Granting that an 

 animal can scent its own track, scent in this, country is proverbially bad, 

 and especially so in the hot weather. As soon as the sun gets powerful and 

 the dew is oflf the ground, hounds can do nothing, and even at the blood- 

 hound trials which were held last year in England, the hounds were let 

 loose as soon as the hunted object bad reached the sanctuary. A tiger does 

 not wander about the jungles in an aimless sort of way, without knowing where 

 it is or where it is going. A tiger knows the particular track of country 

 which it frequents as well as a man knows his native town, and will tind 

 its way back to a kill as easily as a man finds his way to his club. Return- 

 ing to the main point, what proof have we that sambhur would wind a man 

 standing behind a tree but not a man sitting in a tree, Mr. Eardley Wilmot 

 seems to think that a mere assertion on his part that this is so, is sufficient 

 proof, but I certainly should not jump to this conclusion without a very 

 exhaustive series of experiments. If at a sambhur drive the guns are placed 

 in trees, it is to escape being seen just as much as to escape being winded, 

 as it is far more difficult than one thinks for a man to conceal himself 

 behind a tree, especially if he wants to keep an eye on what is coming. The 

 slightest excrescence of an unusual nature will excite suspicion. As a matter 

 of fact I fancy most deer drives would be arranged to be made down wind, 

 and if there are deer in a beat for tiger they are too distracted by the 

 sliouts of the beaters to think of anything else but flight in the opposite 

 direction. I confess to feeling rather sceptical about a man being able to 

 smell a tiger, at any rate at a sufficient distance for practical purposes. I 

 once winded one a considerable way off, but it happened to have died three 

 days before, and cannot, therefore, be taken into account. I have never yet 

 heard of a mia being warned by his nose that a tiger was in the beat, but 

 even admitting that a man can smell a tiger, it does not follow from that 

 that a tiger can smell a man, at any rate at a sufficient distance to warn him 

 of danger. The questiou really to be solved, is, at what distance is au ani- 

 mal's sense of smeU eifective so as to afford it protection. Supposing 

 that a tiger can smell a man at twenty paces, that is not much use to it 

 if it is knocked over at thirty. 



N. C. MACLEOD, 

 Bombay, July, 1899, 



No, XI.— CANNIBALISM. 



The other day I was accidentally enabled to throw some light on the process 



by which the exuberant population of youthful toads, now so conspicuous 



is kept within limits. 1 happened to see a toad about as big as one's thumb 



looking in that attitude of rapt attention which characterizes a batrachian 



28 



