152 NATURAL HISTORY. 



tures among the giant, mammals of the Old World by "skeletonizing four old 

 donkeys " in the county Down ; for which the finest pisanthry on a fruitful sod 

 "came at him with longhandled spades" and "boycotted him in a cabin" till 

 the siege was raised by II. M.'s Royal Irish Constabulary. The motives of his 

 proceeding and of their resentment are obscure ; unless we conceive that old 

 donkeys are so rare in the State of New York, that a traveller can profitably spend 

 money and time on their purchase and dissection ; and that the patriots, on the 

 other hand, considered the victims to be their own next-of-kin ; and the slaughter 

 to be good cause for a blood-feud. Anyhow Mr. Hornaday "came off with whole 

 bones — miue I mean, not the donkey's," and upon the whole prefers Dyaks to 

 Irishmen. 



He got to Bombay after , as we have said, the only amusing trip thither of the 

 last 20 years ; and was disappointed with the contents of the Victoria Museum ; 

 but found the Crawford Markets a happy hunting ground ; and arrived at the 

 conclusion that there were "few marine animals in the neighbourhood of Bombay, 

 except the fishes in the grand Market." Upon this head we feel justified in observing 

 that Mr. Hornaday generalized from a very imperfect experience. He was a week in 

 Bombay, and does not appear to have visited the neighbourhood of it at all. 



His next halt was at Allahabad, whence he proceeded to Etawah and spent some 

 time living in a boat on the Jumna and shooting gavials (Gavialis gangeticus), i.e. 

 long-snouted fishing crocodiles there abundant, but not found in our local waters. 



Our author had one great advantage over the ordinary sportsman, namely, that 

 almost every creature that he saw was capable of being turned into the almighty 

 dollar at Rochester, N. Y.; and he was therefore armed against the scorn with 

 which old shikaris treat the griffin who has killed something that is " not shikar." 

 If he didn't find a gavial any morning, he found a jackal, or a vulture, or a stork ; 

 anatomised him "straight away" and enjoyed immensely a trip which would 

 probably have rather bored the sportsman of Philistia. He points out very well the 

 peculiar charm of crocodile-shooting, which is that above all other forms of the 

 chase it requires the use of straight powder ; often under considerable difficulties 

 and at long ranges. And, like a good many other people, he did not catch a river 

 porpoise [Platanista) but he says he vvill do so yet. 



After this he went out " into districts " with an Executive Engineer and his wife, 

 and fell into the usual delusion of the globe trotter, that the life of a Mofussilite 

 family under canvas is "a continuous picnic," which is of course based upon 

 the not very recondite fact that his host and hostess did all they could to make it 

 so to him. Picnics of this sort, however, are apt to pall a little upon the soul of 

 him with whom they have been "continuous" for 20 years or so ; and who has 

 had to make them pleasant/or himself in despite of the powers that sit in cool 

 places. 



Our picknickers, at any rate, introduced Mr. Hornaday to the black-buck, 

 nilgai, and gazelle, and appear to have informed him that this last was " not found 

 south of the Godavari," which shows that the Britisher can occasionally "ring in 

 fun" even upon Professor Ward's young men. The Indian Gazelle (G. Bennett i) 

 was to be seen every day near Poona, by any one with eyes in his head, at the time 

 he wrote this, and is scattered all over the Deccan Districts and others, far 

 southward, though nowhere so abundant as in parts of Khandesh and Gujarat. 



