Tue ZooLocist—Aveust, 1872. 3169 
fritillary (Melitea Artemis). Heard several cuckoos uttering that 
peculiar note which they often do in June. I had almost forgot to 
mention that when coming down the River Dart I observed a great 
many herons, no doubt belonging to the heronry in the magnificent 
woods of Sharpham: there were also a great number of ring doves 
in the salt marshes by the river side. 
J. GATCOMBE. 
8, Lower Durnford Street, Stonehouse, Plymouth, 
July 4, 1872. 
Wild Indian Elephants in Days of Yore. 
By Epwarp BiytTu, Esq., F.L.S. 
In the ‘ Zoologist’ for July (S. 8. 3104 et seg.) I called attention 
to the former extension of the range of Rhinoceros sondaicus in 
Northern India, and mentioned (on the authority of the Moghul 
Emperor Baber) that wild elephants also occurred over extensive 
districts where at the present time they are utterly unknown. I now 
think that it will interest zoologists to quote from Dr. W. W. 
Hunter’s ‘Annals of Rural Bengal’ the following account of the 
depredations of tigers and of wild elephants in the province 
of Beerbhoom towards the close of the last century, at a time 
subsequent to the fearful ravages of the great famine of 1770, 
when “before the middle of the year ten millions of the general 
population had perished ;” and “at the end of it, an official reports 
that of a certain poor class—the lime-workers—only five out of one 
hundred and fifty were living, and one-third of the country had 
returned to jungle.” (Op. cit. p. 53.) 
“As the little rural communities relinquished their hamlets, and 
drew together towards the centre of the district, the wild beasts 
pressed hungrily in their rear. In vain the Company offered a 
reward for each tiger’s head, sufficient to maintain a peasant’s 
family in comfort for three months; an item of expenditure it 
deemed so necessary, that when, under extraordinary pressure, it 
had to suspend all payments, the tiger-money and diet allowance 
for prisoners were the sole exceptions to the rule. A belt of jungle, 
filled with wild beasts, formed round each village; the official 
records frequently speak of the mail-bag being carried off by wild 
beasts ; and after fruitless injunctions to the landholders to clear 
the forests, Lord Cornwallis was at length compelled to sanction a 
