.•20 PEOCEEDIKGS OF THE 



distribution being most capricious. The great lizard called 

 " Gooee sarp " is common in pools of braekisb water in the jungle ; 

 the mongoose frequently has its burrows in the drier banks. 



One point o£ interest to naturalists that I have never been 

 able to get a satisfactory explanation of, is the unequal dangerous- 

 ness of the same wild animal in localities but little distant apart. 

 The tiger in the Soondreebun is very dangerous to man ; at Dacca 

 there are plenty of tigers, but little children walk alone in the 

 ■jungle at Dacca ; and I never heard of a tiger attackine a man. 

 woman, or child at Dacca. It is said that the jungle is full of 

 deer at Dacca, and that the tigers are not hungry. I will turn, 

 then, to the crocodiles. The crocodiles on the Gorai (in the 

 Soondreebun) are exceedingly dangerous. At the Calcutta 

 Botanic Garden I have known a crocodile to seize a man who 

 dipped a copper vessel into the Hooghly. On the other hand, in 

 the Boorigunja you see everywhere men, women, and children 

 playing in the river all the day long. "We are told again that the 

 Boorigunja is very full of fish. Then on the lower Cobaduck 

 the crocodiles are dangerous, while there is one section of it 

 reckoned by the inhabitants perfectly safe. 



The animals which live in the Soondreebun are very much at 

 home in the water. The tiger can swim long distances ; a tiger 

 one night got upon the Dacca steamer w^hen moored more than a 

 mile from any land. In the great swamps of Bengal — Mymen- 

 singh, Sylhet, and Comilla — the villages during the rains appear 

 island dots in the expanse of water; and this country is the home 

 of the tiger. He does not swim very fast ; for Dr. Praiu tells 

 me that when he chases the wild boar in the water, the boar can 

 swim away. An elephant crossing one evening from Noakhali 

 to an island of the Megna, w^ith his mahout on his back, was 

 carried out to sea by a north-wester ; the next morning the 

 mahout found himself out of sight of land. The elephant swam 

 northwiird all that day, and the next morning the mahout found 

 himself close to the island he originally started for. On landing, 

 the elephant was perfectly fresh and worked that day, but the 

 mahout was nearly dead from thirst. When I read in some 

 geologic papers that the presence of the larger animals in England 

 proves, a priori, laud-connexion between England and the Con- 

 tinent, I do not esteem the argument convincing. An elepliaut 

 would swim from Calais to Dover without diificulty. A buffalo 

 can cross the Bruhmapootra in flood. 



The " Burisal Guns " are a natural phenomenon heard over 

 a large area in the Soondreebun ; they are loudest in Burisal 

 Station. I have never heard them close. They sound to me 

 exceedingly like the Portsmouth guns as they are heard 10-20 

 miles off inland. Much attention though they have attracted, I 

 am unable to venture any explanation of these remarkable sounds ; 

 in the opinioa of Sir John Phear (past President of the Asiatic 

 Society of Bengal), they stand at present amongst the most uu- 

 accouutable of the nattiral phenomena of the globe. 



