54& JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. X, 



evident, for the quarryraen, whoever they may have been, have 

 bored numerous connecting tunnels through the dividing rock and 

 limestone. In shape these passages are nearly all semi-circular arcs^ 

 in height and breadth varying from less than five feet to more 

 than fifteen. Originally the walls and ground were most probably 

 quite smooth, but the bears have torn up tlie former and time has- 

 roughened them both and added short stalagmites and stalactites in 

 patches everywhere. 



One year, on the 26th of April, I had been searching several of these 

 quarries for bear, and had succeeded in shooting one of a pair which 

 were seated in a little cave. The one I fired at never moved after 

 receiving the shot, but the other one scrambled off to a cave still lower 

 down, and either her movements or the report of the gun disturbed 

 a pair of birds which I at once recognized as Spine-tails of some kind^ 

 but, having the bear still to look after, I could not then pay them any 

 attention. I finally killed the bear in a short, very high tunnel be- 

 tween two ravines which were about twenty feet deep by about half that 

 in width. In this place we again saw two or three of these birds as 

 they flashed past us whilst we were examining the bear, but not for a 

 moment did it enter my head that the}^ were breeding anywhere near. 

 On the 28th, however, I revisited the spot, and failing to find any bearSy 

 my Cachari attendant and I had ample opportunities to take a 

 oood look round. In one corner was a large mass of moss 

 laid out so as to form a couch, yet warm from where a bear had been 

 lying on it, and behind this was a shallow cave where Mrs. B. had. 

 Miost likely raised her last family ; signs everywhere showing that the 

 tunnel and caves in it were the country residences of a party of bears^ 

 in all probability the bears I had shot and their cubs, I was leaving 

 this place, when my notice was attracted to a patch of dull green which 

 contrasted with the dirty white colour of the wall, and which closer 

 examination proved to be a nest. It was not easy to get at, and the 

 Cachari not being strong enough to hold me on his shoulders, I had to 

 let him mount on mine and try to get down the nest with a crooked 

 stick. We were, despite our best efforts, quite unable to succeed 

 in this, so we turned our attention elsewhere, and were fortunate 

 enono-h to find two more nests in the same cave and which, with a 

 little trouble, we were able to take. 



