154 JOURNAL, BOMB A Y NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. X. 



and the turtle dropped him, and he rose to the surface and rolled over and 

 over. Then the turtle caught him again, and began taking a series of 

 dives from one end of the pool to the other. The pace was astonishing. 

 Backwards and forwards they went, and at each turn, when they came to the 

 surface, the crocodile's head came out of the water and he gasped for breath. 

 The turtle was apparently drowning him. Eventually he no doubt consider- 

 ed he was harmless and swam with him to the tank and tried to get out of 

 the water. The steepness of the tank, however, defied him, and he gradually 

 worked his way round to a place where cattle had made a path down. Here 

 he pushed the crocodile out of the water where I, who had crawled to the 

 spot, gave him a rap on the nose with a cane. In his astonishment he dropped 

 the crocodile, which I appropriated. He probably thought it hard luck, but I 

 wanted the skin. 



This, however, was of little value, as I found that at the point of first 

 seizure, namely, at the junction of the hind legs with the back bone, the animal 

 was virtually cut in half. 



It was a most interesting sight, and as it caused me some considerable 

 excitement to view, it occurred to me you might care to hear of it. 



" MOIDART," 



Ulwae, Rajputana, 15th September, 1895, 



No, XII.— LEOPARD versus PORCUPINE. 



I dare say some members of the Society have heard, and may possibly have 

 seen, an example of a tiger which has met its death from eating a porcupine 

 in a hurry and the quills sticking in the gullet ; but it may not also be known 

 that leopards occasionally die from the same cause. The other day, when out 

 shooting in a Mysore forest, I came across the dead body of a small, but fully 

 grown, leopard which had apparently been dead for some hours. On examin- 

 ing the body I found a number of porcupine quills sticking in various parts. 

 One paw was in its mouth, and on removing it and looking down the throat 

 I noticed quite a number of quills sticking up, which apparently were the cause 

 of the animal's death, I was unable to find any part of the porcupine's body, 

 but at a short distance behind the leopard I found a number of large quills and 

 a good deal of blood. It appears to me strange that, if tigers and leopards 

 habitually eat porcupines, natural instinct has not taught them to avoid 

 bolting the quills, 



G. S. RODON, Major. 

 Mysoke, 12th September, 1895. 



