184 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. X1I1. 
No. VI—PARTURITION OF AN ECHIS CARINATA. 
With reference toa question raised by Mr. E. ©. Cholmondeley in his 
note in the last number of this Journal, concerning the parturition of vivi- 
parous snakes, 1 may mention that while I was stationed at Trichinopoly, 
an Echis carinata that I had had in my possession for some weeks (sus— 
pecting pregnancy) gave birth to 12 young, This happened on the night 
of the 7th August, 1896, but unhappily as I was ignorant of the event until 
the morning of the 8th, I could not attend the accouchement, : 
The mother did not add to her original brood, for I kept her for some time 
afterwards, In spite of the fact that there was no possible means of escape 
from their prison box, the brood decreased in numbers without any dead 
bodies being found and for which a search was instituted, and this suggested 
to me that the mother might have preyed on her offspring. She had live 
frogs put in daily to tempt her should she have felt hungry,so there was no 
excuse for such behaviour which indeed I failed to verify, 
Bach of the young cast a slough shortly after birth (before the next night). 
One specimen I measured was 42” in length, 
F, WALL, Capr., LMS. * 
RANGOON, 21st December, 1899. 
No. VIJ.—KINGFISHERS KILLING BIRDS. 
Tf it is not generally known that kingfishers occasionally kill small birds, 
possibly the following instance of their doing so may be of interest, 
Water is terribly scarce in these parts, most of the rivers and tanks being 
long since dry, and perhaps these kingfishers were compelled by stern necessity 
to change their diet, My camp was pitched under a huge Banyan tree 
recently (where, by the way, I noticed no less than 23 specimens of birds 
within a few yards of my tent) and one afternoon a kingfisher, Halcyon 
fuscus, made a determined attack on a bird which escaped with the loss 
of a cloud of feathers, Next day, however, the kingfisher was more success- 
ful, for I saw it accompanied by its mate fly past me carrying a small bird 
in its bill. They flew into a big tamarind tree where, I presume, they dis- 
cussed their breakfast, Three magpies also mobbed and killed and carried 
away a‘full-grown bulbul from below the same tree the previous day, but 
I believe their carnivorous habits are well known. 
W. F. BISCOE, 
HypzrapaD, DEccAN, 30th December, 1899. 
No, VIIL—VESPERTILIO PACHYPUS, TEMMINCK. 
(A CORRECTION.) : 
In the last number of the Journal (XII-4) I recorded the receipt of a pair 
of bats from Mr, Fry which I identified as Vespertilio pachyotis, Dobson. 
I have recently taken a series of more than a dozen in the same locality, wiz., 
Londa, on the Southern Mahratta Railway, and there can be no doubt that 
