814 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HLST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXII. 



unlike any other species which 1 have as yet found in Outch or has been 

 recorded by Dr. Waagen. 



J. H. SMITH. 

 Bhuj, ^Ith September 191.3. 



No. XXXII.— STRAY NOTES ON OLD INDIAN NATURAL 

 HISTORY AND SPORTING PERIODICALS. 



I think it may be of interest to recall some of the earlier publications in 

 India which dealt with Sporting and Natural History subjects. The earli- 

 est in my possession is the Oriental Sporting Magazine which was published 

 in Bombay in June 1828 and continued quarterly till June 1833. The 

 Bengal Sporting Magazine was issued at Calcutta in March 1833 monthly 

 at a subscription of Rs. 16 per annum raised to Rs. 20 in 1837 when its title 

 was altered to the Bengal Sporting and General Magazine. It ceased to 

 exist in 1846. The Calcutta Journal of Natural History, the first journal 

 of the kind established in India, was published quarterly in 1840 or 1841 

 and consists of seven volumes and two numbers of the 8th volume; it ended 

 in February 1848. The India Sporting Review began in March 1845, the 

 last volume I have is the fourteenth in 1851 ; it was published quarterly. 

 There are, no doubt, other publications of a similar character but I do not 

 have them. The Oriental Sporting Magazine was republished in two 

 volumes by Henry S. King & Co. in 1873 and is easily procured. This 

 magazine in its first number contains the immortal song of " The' next grey 

 Boar we see " sung either to the tune " My love is like the Red Red Rose " 

 or " My Highland home where tempests blow." It was written by Captain 

 Thomas D'Arcy Morris who appears to have been the principal contributor 

 to this magazine. He did not always sign his effusions, but when he did 

 he (as my father who knew him informed me) signed S. Y. S., these being 

 the last letters of his three names. Morris's forte was parody and many of 

 his pigsticking songs are parodies of Moore, e. g., Tales of the Tuskers 

 which enshrines " The Boar of Rarah Borah " is a parody on " the Loves 

 of the angels." " Oh think not our spear blades are always as bright " a 

 parody on "oh think not our spirits are always as light " and " the spear 

 that once o'er Deccan Dust " a parody on " The Harp that once thro ' 

 Tara's Halls " to mention only some of them. 



Captain Morris also wrote " Saddle, spur and spear " and many other 

 songs which bear the signature S. Y. S., besides contributing several amusing 

 prose papers. He seems to have been of the opinion of his own verse 

 "Oh, who would change one hour of sport for a thousand hours with none. " 

 Major Morris, as he then was, died in 1835 from illness contracted in the 

 campaign against the Bheels in Mahee Kanta. He was Quartermaster 

 General of the Bombay Army. Pigs appear to have been numerous in the 

 Bombay Presidency at this date. The Deal Table riders as mentioned in 

 the Tales of the Tuskers were a detachment from the Poena Union Hunt 

 established in 1815 and consisted of four members legs, as they were called, 

 of the table who derived their title from the circumstance of their taking 

 no furniture with them except a common deal plank which served them as 

 a dresser and dining table. The names of three of them were Jeffries, 

 Davis and Malet. I have forgotten the name of the fourth. 



The huntsman mentioned in the Boar of Rarah Borah was Jeffries. The 

 members of the Nagger Hunt used in those days 80 years and more ago 

 to dine together in pink. I still possess the evening swallow tail coat of 

 my father made of scarlet mohair with black velvet collar and cuff's. The 

 buttons are brass showing in relief a galloping boar with a broken spear in 

 his back surrounded by the legend "The Boar the mighty Boar". 



