MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 163 



alarm, for of coarse it was at the mercy of any crow, or other enemy, that 

 might pass that way. When I went up to it, their alarm reached fever heat, 

 and suddenly one of them fell with a gentle slope, like a wounded snipe] 

 znto the middle of the road, twenty yards from me, and, making its way to' 

 the side with much apparent difficulty, proceeded to scramble away among the 

 fallen leaves, falling on its face at every other step, with wings outspread, and 

 screaming piteously. When I followed it to see what was the matter, it flew 

 up into a tree and twittered to me airily. I could scarcely credit a Bulbul 

 with so much cunning, so I went back to the young one and pretended to be 

 trying to catch it, when the trick was repeated, the other parent this time 

 abetting its mate by pretending to pursue and attack it. I rewarded them by 

 putting their young one into a place of safety. A few days later I saw an- 

 other pair of Bulbul successfully deceive a crow by the same trick and draw 

 it away from a place where its presence was not desired. 



E. H. AITKEN. 

 9^^ July 1901. 



No. XVI.-ON THE DEPOSITS OF FOSSIL REMAINS OF EXTINCT 



ANIMALS IN THE SEWALIK HILLS OF THE PUNJAB 



AND NORTH-WEST PROVINCES. 



While shooting along the base of the Hoshiarpur Sewaliks, I heard of some 



limestone quarries not far ofP, so I rode over to see them. On my way I 



found the so-called limestone being brought to a village near my camp to be 



burnt into lime in kilns of which there were many built of circular mud 



walls. 



On examining the stone, I found it to be, not limestone, but phosphate of 

 lime formed by the fossilized bones of prehistoric animals, among which I 

 recognized the teeth of the Mastodon, and the bones of elephantine creatures, 

 V^^oh^hly oi Mastodon, Ekphasganesa and Elephas bomUfrons. Host no time' 

 in going to see the quarries, about a mile and-a-half from the village, and I 

 found them to be excavations in the side of one of the hills of this range 

 Large cavernous holes had been dug in many places in the hill side wherever 

 it was suspected that this fossil deposit lay beneath. The bones were never 

 very far from the surface, and here again I identified the bones I have already 

 described. There were others that I could not recogni?e. All these re- 

 mains were being loaded on camels and donkeys, and were sent oif to the 

 village kilns. 



The sloping surface of the hill side was covered with the semi-pulverized 

 debris of the fossil deposits from the quarries, and upon this crops of 

 chenna and mustard were growing. The extraordinary luxuriance of these 

 crops showed me at once (what is of course known) the immense value 

 as a fertilizer, of this phosphate, which is daily being wasted in the lime 

 kilns, 



