PREFACE. 



(By Vagrant.) 



CHICULDA, EAST BERAR, 14th May 1870. 

 THESE notes are merely the rough jottings down of an un- 

 scientific sportsman who does not for 'a moment suppose 

 that there can be any information in them worthy of the 

 information of a Naturalist, If however they corroborate 

 that which has already been recorded by JERDON, or induce 

 other hunters to take an interest in natural history, the 

 aim of the writer will be attained. He has not mentioned 

 anything which has not, or at any rate might not have, 

 been seen by any keen Madras sportsman, of whom there 

 are many scores better than he is, and still more whose 

 power and experience in penmanship would have done far 

 more justice to the subject. For this reason he has avoided 

 the fascinating theme of field sports as much as possible. 

 He craves pardon for having been more egotistical than a 

 trained scribe would ; when self has been mentioned he has 

 only wished to give evidence in the first person. He begs 

 the eminent Naturalist on whose work these notes have been 

 grafted to forgive his having at times formed different ideas 

 of subjects under consideration. As a lover of natural his- 

 tory Dr. JERDON must know how difficult it is to obtain 

 correct information, as a sportsman he must remember how 

 pleasant it is to take one's " own line." 



Dr. JERDON'S order and nomenclature have been fol- 

 lowed : first, because the writer of these notes is an unlet- 

 tered sportsman, whose very slight knowledge of natural 

 history has been gleaned in the open air, in swamp or forest, 

 on hill-side or plain instead of from books, in fact a Vagrant 

 who like the Scot of old ever " loved better to hear the lark 

 sing than the mouse cheep," and secondly, because, even if 

 he had scientific training sufficient to warrant his bringing 



