235 



MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 



No. I.— TIGER CALLING LIKE A SAMBUR. 



Mr. Seton-Karr's interesting accovint of hearing a sambur 'belling' in 

 close proximity of tigers is very like an experience of mine. 



Once at Kamaing in the Myitkyina District, I got kubbar late in the 

 afternoon that some tigers, said to be a tigress and cubs, had got into a herd 

 of cattle and had killed and mauled a lot of them. I immediately went 

 out and found that four or five had been killed. I had the carcases 

 dragged near the only tree, which was unfortunately a bare dead one, and 

 had a machan built and spent the night in it. Soon after dark I heard the 

 tigers moving round in the half burnt elephant grass, but they would not 

 come to the •' kill ". After a time I heard one calling to my right in the 

 direction of the village, shortly after that I heard a sharp "Sambur-like" 

 call to my right and slightly behind me ; I heard this call at least three 

 times. A little later I heard an unfortunate cow cry out ; I heard it killed 

 and the tigers feeding, ( this kill was within 100 yards of my tree). This 

 cow must have been mauled in the afternoon and left behind when the 

 others were driven in. Now this " Sambur-like call " may of course have 

 been a sambur, but the spot was near a village and must have been very 

 disturbed in the afternoon, and so would have been a most unlikely 

 place for a sambur. 



In Burma it is a well known fact that tigers often call like a sambur, 

 this is called by the Burmese " Tit " ing. The above is not the only time 

 I have heard this calling ; on two or three other occasions I have heard 

 exactly the same call and been informed by the shikaries that it was a 

 tiger. 



I know several other men in Burma who have also heard the same call. 

 In Mr. Seton-Karr's account he does not say he actually saw the sambur, so 

 most probably the call he heard was one of the tigers calling to the other. 



H. H. HARINGTON, Major. 

 Mandalay, 14th June 1911. 



In the Miscellaneous Notes of the last issue of your Journal there is 

 included an account of the behaviour of a sambur (Cervus wiicolor) in the 

 presence of tigers near a kill. 



Mr. Seton-Karr does not say that he actually saw the sambur hind but 

 he states that he heard " the sharp clarion call of a sambur hind " and 

 ends his note with a query " why did the tigers not molest her .P" I think 

 the probable answer is that there was no sambur hind to be molested and 

 that what the writer thought was a sambur hind was in reality one of the 

 two tigers which he ultimately saw. 



