166 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XL 



capital father, invariably taking all the food given hira— mice, lizards, birds, 

 &c.— to the hen, who fed the youngster most carefully, holding its head up 

 between her legs during the process. The chick grew rapidly, and seemed to 

 be doing well, but on April 13th it died. The parent birds seemed quite un- 

 aware that anything was wrong, the female continuing to brood contentedly 

 over the young one for hours after it was stiff and cold. Both birds had been 

 very savage since the appearance of the egg, and they strongly resented my 

 removing the dead chick, the old male swooping down on my head while I 

 was engaged in keeping the hen-bird at a distance with a stick, giving me a 

 smart cut on the scalp and drawing blood pretty freely. Both birds were very 

 excited after the removal of the nestling, walking up and down the aviary 

 for some hours growling angrily. These owls were taken from a nest early 

 in 1893, so are just about four years old. 



A. L. BUTLER. 

 Ceylon, April, 1897. 



No. XIX.— ON THE INDIAN PORCUPINE. 



With reference to the interesting article which appeared in the Society's 

 Journal, No. 1, Vol. X, on the different kinds of fleas, I wonder if any of our 

 members can give me the specific name of the giant flea which infests the 

 body of the Indian Porcupine. It must be fully ten times as large as the 

 ordinary flea, and so far I have not noticed it on any other animal. 



I have also observed that in some localities the blood of the porcupine 

 is highly phosphorescent, a fact which does not appear to have been recorded, 

 but whether this is due to their food I cannot determine. On one occasion 

 I was out on a bright moonlight night and I had placed a piece of white 

 cloth on the barrel of my gun to act as a " Night Sight." I fired at a 

 porcupine and immediately noticed a light in the ground, and naturally 

 supposed that my " Night Sight " had caught fire and was smouldering, but 

 on approaching, I found I was mistaken, and that the light came from a 

 piece of the entrails of the animal. During the same night I killed another 

 porcupine, and noticed a similar patch of phosphorescent light at the place 

 where the animal was struck. I have since shot scores of porcupines, but 

 have never noticed anything of the kind. It is well known that these animals 

 are exceedingly fond of bones and deer's antlers, which, I suppose, they eat in 

 order to obtain a supply of phosphate of lime for the formation of their quills, 

 and the peculiarity I have referred to above may have been due to an 

 unsually large supply of bones and horns in that particular neighbourhood. I 

 shall be glad to know whether this curious phosphorescence in the porcupine's 

 blood has been observed before. 



L. MOREAU. 



Gwynd, April, 1897. 



