MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 849 



•opportunities of seeing for myself, and can now safely back my original theory, 

 -that flying-squirrels (Pteromys sp.) are the culprits. 



I have a tame one, which is hard at work on a table beside me, as I write, 

 and I send for the inspection of the Members, the result of three or four 

 nights' labour to enable them to judge for themselves, whether the boring in 

 these nuts is similar to that of those sent by General Osborn in the first 

 instance, the holes in which were assigned to the agency of the Himalayan 

 Nutcracker (Nucifraga hemispila). 



It takes the squirrel between one and two hours steady gnawing to make 

 the hole, and then it gets at the kernel with its lower incisors, working the nut 

 round and round in its paws, while the teeth are busy inside. 



It has a curious trick of concealing each nut after it has finished with it 

 under a piece of cloth or paper, but only walnuts are thus treated and no other 

 kind of food; cake, bread, fruit and everything else is simply left where it 

 happens to have finished with them, but every particle of walnut, however 

 small, is carefully hidden away, and then seemingly it forgets all about its 

 treasures, as an hour or two later it will be quite ready to start on a fresh one 

 hut never thinks of returning to the old one unless it runs up against it by 

 mistake, when it will take a few bites and then again carefully hide away 

 what remains in a different spot. 



As an engaging pet the flying squirrel would be hard to beat, with one draw- 

 back, and that is, it gets most lively at a time when everyone else wants to sleep* 



C. H. DONALD. 

 Bhadarwa, Kashmir, 12th November 1906. 

 [ The walnuts sent by Mr. Donald though of a thinner shelled variety than 

 those sent originally by General Osborn, have exactly the same shaped holes in 

 them, and we think this evidence finally settles the fact that the holes in these 

 walnuts were bored by Flying Squirrels and not by the Himalayan Nutcrackers. 



EDS.] 



No. XL.— THE STUDY OF BIRDS. 

 I have often been told by our younger or more inexperienced members, who 

 are anxious to take up the study of the birds of their neighbourhood, that they 

 find great difficulty in understanding the descriptions of them in books owing to 

 the fact that they are not familiar with the technical designations of the 

 different tracts or groups of feathers. They understand of course the wing or 

 the back, bat when the description relates to the " secondaries, " " primary 

 coverts," " scapulars," and such like, they fail to follow the meaning of it. 

 Many, who would otherwise derive much amusement from ornithology, are 

 consequently deterred from following up their desire to become acquainted with 

 the birds they come across by reason of the impossibility of identifying them. 

 Eha's excellent little book, " The Common Birds of Bombay," will go far to 

 help the beginner, as technical description is entirely avoided, but for those who 

 wish to go a step further it is necessary to learn the terms by which the various 

 feathers are known, and this with a very little study is not a complicated matter 



