582 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL fllSTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XlV, 



as they worked towards tLe centre. The work went forward without cease 

 until only a hole big enough to admit one's finger was left. The ants around 

 the edges of this hole were working in almost a solid mass and with such 

 feverish haste that the hole appeared to close up automatically nothing 

 finally being visible but the antennae of the ants sticking out of crevices iii 

 the mud and waving in all directions as the finishing touches were applied^ 

 The whole time occupied over the repairs was 35 minutes from the time I 

 originally damaged the striictiire, 



G. P. MILLETT, I. F. S. 

 Kanaka Distkict, Viih April 1902. 



No. II —SMALL GAME SHOOTING PROSPECTS IN WESTERN INDIA, 



The end of the shooting season for 190U1902 has now passed — and a very 

 bad season it has been — in fact, it would perhaps be wiser not to call it a 

 shooting season at all. Coming, however, as it did as the third of a series ot 

 lean years the opportunity seems, I think, a good one to try and form some 

 deductions as to how these three years of famine and scanty rainfall have 

 affected game of all kinds on this side of India. 



In order to do so, it will be well to divide game into two heads, vis: — 



(1") That of migratory species who only visit us during the cold weather* 

 (2) That of indigenous game which breeds with us. 

 Dealing with the former first, we shall have to consider the large family of 

 ducks and geese, and also the grey quail, and in addition to these we may find 

 it worth saying a word or two about cranes and other water birds. 



It will I think, be found best to deal with each successive year before 

 eeneralizinc, so I will commence with the first famine year, viz., 1899-1900. 



During this year we had practically no rain, and both Kharift and Kabi 

 crops failed and there was no grass or water anywhere. 



I was not in India during the cold weather, but I gather that gesse and 

 duck were plentiful but that their usual haunts being dried up they resorted 

 in large numbers to the big rivers where very heavy bags were made. The 

 birds especially the geese, were tame to excess, owing of course to weakness 

 and starvation, and the same probably held good of the duck, as their food-^ 

 supplies in the rivers must have been of a very inferior nature. 



The snipe had no feeding ground at all, and such as did not at once pass 

 on must have died of starvation among their old and now dried up haunts* 

 The same must have applied to the quail in even a more marked degree. 

 It may I think, be taken as probable that of the vast hordes of emigrant 

 visitors to Gujrat, few of those who did not at once move on to new pas- 

 tures survived in their old haunts, and that none of them would be in a fit 

 state to face the return journey to their breeding grounds. 



The next year was not such a very dry year in so far that at the beginning 

 of the season there was a good amount of water about, and any amount of 

 as good q.uail ground as I ever saw. But as a shooting year it was a com- 



