164 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL BIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXVIl. 



No. III.— TIGERS IN TREES. 



With regard to Mr, Monteath's note on this subject in Journal No. 3, 

 Volume XXVI, some interesting instances of tigers climbing trees are 

 civen in the Bengal Quarterly Sporting Review for 1843. Two similar 

 mstances are also recorded by " Teutonius " in the India Sporting Review 

 of 1856. But the most remarkable instance is related in graphic detail in 

 the South of India Observer in 1870, when Colonel Christie and Mr. Hadow 

 shot a tigress out of a tree that was perpendicular for 25 feet from the 

 ground and about a foot in diameter. The tigress climbed the tree twice 

 during the hunt, which took place near Ootacamund. 



R. G. BURTON, Col. 



December 1919. 



No. IV.— SCENT. 



A fox-hunter writes to the Times that the scent of the fox emanates 

 from a sub-caudal gland, and not from the pads, as is commonly supposed. 



This opens up an interesting, though unsavoury, field for enquiry. It is 

 probable that all cauine species are similarly provided, and observation 

 might elicit whether this is characteristic of all animals. 



In following up a wounded Indian wild dog in the Melghat Forest in 

 1891, I observed a strong ammoniac secretion, which had exuded on to the 

 tail, and the scent of which could be detected from a distance. When the 

 dog was brought to bag, an aboriginal Kurku, observing this, remarked 

 that in pursuing its prey the wild-dog flicks poison with its tail into the 

 eyes of its victim, thus blinding the animal. The Kurkus were eager to 

 obtain the wild dog's liver to make medicine, ascribing to it aphrodisiac 

 properties. 



R. G. BURTON, Col. 



10^/i December 1919. 



No. v.— FOOD OF THE GREY MUSK SHREW {GROCIDURA 



G^RULEA). 



According to Blanford (Mammalia, Fauna of British India), the food of 

 -this shrew consists mainly of insects and he says that " experiments made 

 by Anderson on individuals kept alive by him showed that they refused to 

 touch any kind of grain, but devoured insects, especially cockroaches, 

 freely and he found no vegetable food of any kind in the stomachs of 

 several he examined". I have recently had a large number of these 

 shrews caught in my garden, as I found small holes made in the grass lawn . 

 As a result 1 have caught more than 40 of these shrews and in several 

 oases the bait in the traps— Cocoanut— was in the mouth of the shrew when 

 the trap killed it. The holes in the lawn appear to be made for the pur- 

 pose of digging up the roots of the ' bimli ' grass and I found a lot of this 

 grass lying on the ground, bitten ofi just below the surface of the ground 

 The roots of the 'bimli ' are bulbs which go down several inches into the 

 ground and it may have been these bulbs that the shrews were after 



In any case I think it conclusively proves that these shrews also eat 

 v«-^getable matter. 



W. S. MILLARD. 

 Bombay, Malabae, Hill, 



Bth April 1920. 



