258 SPORT IN BENGAL. 



it the next moment, when I heard a great splashing a few 

 yards ahead, and running forward, found a family of six rhi- 

 noceri male, female, and young in a state of great commo- 

 tion. One of them, a large bull, coming out on my side of the 

 water in which they were all standing, compelled me to take 

 shelter behind a tree, from whence I gave him a ball at about 

 fifteen yards' distance, but he went away as if untouched. 

 My second barrel was fired at another mounting the bank on 

 the opposite side, but it, too, got away, leaving lots of blood 

 and froth on the trail, and although I followed, it was to no 

 purpose, and I never saw one of them again. But for that 

 unlucky and ill-timed ' coo-ee,' I might have had the gratifi- 

 cation of seeing that family at play, and had I had a heavy 

 instead of a light rifle, I should have bagged one if not 

 more." 



According to Mr. Pughe, the " myna " takes the place in 

 India of the rhinoceros-bird in Africa, attaching itself to him 

 for the purpose of picking off the ticks and other parasites 

 which infest his hide, but sometimes becoming unintentionally 

 the messenger of death to its gigantic ally, as its upward 

 soaring and alighting on the same spot will reveal the pre- 

 sence of its friend to the watchful sportsman, who otherwise 

 might not discover him in the midst of a sea of grass. 



As the " king-crow " attends the buffalo, sitting upon his 

 neck or back, ever ready to snap up the insects disturbed by 

 the grazing animal, and the graceful white cattle-heron 

 stalks in front of the feeding cow with the same object, I 

 fear a purely selfish one, so the " myna," no doubt, becomes 

 the attendant of the rhinoceros, as much for the sake of the 

 insects roused out of the grass and reeds as for those to be 

 found on his skin. 



