278 Miscellanea. [VOL. I, 



died long after arriving at maturity, but never showed any sign 

 of changing from grey to black. 



The following extracts from a letter from Mr. E. v'^tuart Baker 

 may throw further light on the subject of colour-changes in hoolock 

 gibbons : — 



" Susan, a female gibbon got by me as a mature animal, was 



sent to Colonel Vaughan, I. M.S Colonel Vaughan kept 



her for some time and then passed her on to a Captain (now 

 Colonel) Johnstone, and he again to others, and when I saw her 

 many years later she was still jet black. A very large adult grey 

 2 belonged to a Mr. Lewis Jones in North Cachar. It was caught 

 as a grey hutcha (young one) and remained the same colour, in 

 this case a dark grey, all the time I knew it. I have kept many 

 black hoolocks, in one case from a few da^^s old until it was seven 

 or eight years old, and never have I seen any change of colour take 

 place." 



Mr. Stuart Baker, who has considerable experience of Assam 

 hoolocks in their wild state, has often seen the same small com- 

 munity of hoolocks to contain white, brown, and black specimens, 

 and these seemed to him always to remain the same. 



The late Mr. Louis Schwendler, who will always be remembered 

 in connexion with the establishment of the Calcutta Zoological 

 Garden, related to me the following facts about a pet hoolock of 

 his, a female of a jet black colour. She broke her arm by a fall 

 from a tree and had to be kept in close confinement for over six 

 weeks. During this period of enforced captivity she lost her 

 black colour, and became almost grey. Change of hue, brought 

 about by illness or injur}", has been known to occur in other species 

 of monkeys — particularly in Semnofnthccus pileatus, and Macacits 

 arctoides. 



R. B. Sanyal, Rat Bahadur. 



BATRACHIA. 



Eggs of Tylototriton verrucosus. — Mr. R. Hodgart, Zoological 

 Collector in the Museum, while collecting Batrachia at Kurseong 

 (5,000 feet) in the Darjiling district, recently (July, IQ07) found 

 several breeding females and eggs of this, the only Indian Urodele. 

 Before describing the eggs I may notice a curious observation he 

 made as regards the adult. He found that if it was grasped in 

 the hand by the body it lashed about vigorously with its tail and 

 drew blood from the hand. An examination of his specimens 

 shows th it the dorsal ridge is, at the base of the tail, exceedingly 

 sharp and has a stiff and inflexible character. I have no doubt 

 that this was the weapon used. Unfortunately the egg5, from one 

 of which a larva is in the act of escaping, are not in a very good 

 state of preservation, but the following particulars may be noted. 

 They were found in small pools of rain water in an open wood and 

 were attached together in pairs, each pair being separate from 



