636 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XI. 



pipe and considerable variation of song. It sang mostly in the mornings and 

 up to about 3 p, m. all the year round, except when moulting in the months 

 of June, July, and August, 



Some naturalists maintain that young birds learn their song from their 

 parents, but this certainly was not the case with my bird, which was taken too 

 young from the nest to have profited much in that way. The following 

 incident is interesting as showing that birds inherit instinctive knowledge and 

 do not necessarily learn by experience or the example set by other birds. 



As a rule when hanging in the verandah my bird used to take no notice of 

 the kites which were continually hovering round and sometimes coming close 

 to it, but one day a small hawk happened to fly through the compound and 

 the wagtail was immediately thrown into a state of the wildest fright and 

 dashed about the cage uttering its alarm note. 



On being transferred to this barren rock I found it impossible to procure 

 insects in sufficient numbers, so tried giving it sandhoppers, annelids, small 

 crustacea, but nothing came amiss to this most accommodating little bird, who 

 ate these things as readily as its former food, occasionally varying it with 

 plum-pudding, raw meat, and chopped egg, though " satu " continued to form 

 the basis of its meals. At the beginning of the hot weather I went home 

 leaving my little pet in excellent hands, but the climate proved too much for it 

 and it died during moulting. I had had it for two years, and a more cheerful 

 •and engaging little pet it would be difficult to imagine, to say nothing of its 

 singing powers which, in my opinion, excelled those of a canary. 



A. NEWNHAM, 



15th Bo. L. I. 

 Aden, November, 1897. 



No. X.— NOTES ON MAN-EATERS AND OTHER THINGS. 



The object of this paper is to give a summary of the information as to 

 the habits and ways of tigers and panthers that have taken to killing human 

 beings, gathered during three seasons spent in hunting some of them. The 

 information is scanty, I admit — but it was all I could get. If I had been 

 able to speak the Gond dialect or language, I might have got more, but I 

 could not pick it up, and had no one to translate it for me, except in frag- 

 ments. Still, perhaps, there may be among the scraps of information I have 

 gathered something that is not already known even to shikaries of great 

 experience. 



Every man-eater, I suppose, is more or less an animal by itself, with 

 characteristics differing more or less from every other individual of its 

 species — including (usually at least) other man-eaters. Therefore each 

 one must be studied separately and treated accordingly ; for to hunt an 

 exceptional animal according to the familiar routice will do no good to any- 



