1888-89.] Notes on Natural History in India. 205 



does not thrive in any place where the winter temperature 

 falls below 32°. Two other trees may be mentioned — Butea 

 frondosa, which in April is leafless, but covered with scarlet 

 blossoms ; and the Albizzia speciosa, with fragrant white 

 flowers. Altogether, Southern Banda is a botanical paradise, 

 but there are botanical evils even there. The worst one is a 

 grass, Heteropogon contortus, with a long, twisted, barbed awn, 

 which it sends through the trousers of the passer-by into his 

 legs. Then there are the carpels of Sterculia urens and Mu- 

 cuna pruriens, covered with stinging hairs, which cause the 

 most intolerable itching. But as these last grow on trees at 

 some height from the ground, they are only troublesome to 

 inquisitive botanists or to the lower animals — they do not 

 annoy the ordinary European traveller. The grass, however, 

 torments all three — botanists, tourists, and beasts. 



With regard to animals in the Banda district, we may com- 

 mence with bimana. As the people are vegetarians, they are, 

 compared with Europeans, a weak, short-lived race — the lat- 

 ter even more decidedly than the former. That the shortness 

 of life does not depend mainly on the heat of the climate is 

 shown by contrasting the Indians with the Chinese, who are 

 physically the strongest and longest-lived race in the world. 

 But then they eat not only beef, mutton, and pork, but also 

 dogs, rats, and lizards. With much practical wisdom, they 

 never touch fresh milk, butter, nor cheese, though a prepar- 

 ation of milk and sugar, curdled with vinegar, is greatly ap- 

 preciated by them.^ In India itself, the Mohammedans, who 

 occasionally eat animal food, are certainly longer lived than 

 the purely vegetarian Hindoos. That they are stronger as 

 young men, I am not prepared to assert or deny positively ; 

 but they are certainly longer lived. It is strange that the 

 modern Hindoos should be such strict vegetarians, for their 

 ancestors, the old Aryans, when they first came from Afghan- 

 istan into India, were beef-eaters. The total change of diet 

 is strange, but the same change occurred in ancient Greece, 

 though not to quite the same extent. The Homeric Greeks 

 were beef-eaters ; the Greeks of Pericles' time, fish and vege- 

 table eaters, rarely touching butcher-meat. 



With regard to the lower animals, the tiger is rare in 



1 See Miss Gordon Cumming's ' Wauderings in China,' p. 155. 



