430 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. VIII, 
The following notes taken from tickets attached to specimens in the 
Calcutta Herbarium will throw some light on the habitat of the plants :— 
PSILOTUM TRIQUETRUM, Sw.—‘ Gateway of old Fort, Malacca,” Maingay ; 
‘interior of crater, Barren Island,” Prain; ‘‘ growing on stone 
near the crater of Gunong Boddas Preanger, Java,” H. O. Forbes; 
“srowing on temples, Sibsagar, Assam,” Wasters ; ‘‘ growing in a 
hollow tree where some soil had accumulated, Perak,” Kunséler ; 
“ad saxa rupesque, Mauritius” (no collector’s name), 
PsILOTUM COMPLANATUM, Sw.—“ Growing under a fern on a, tree, Chan- 
deriang river, Perak,’ Kunstler; “growing from seams of rock, 
Chil-hua-hua, Mexico,” Pringle. 
The largest of the living plants of P. triquetrum in the Royal Botanic 
Garden were brought about 15 years ago by Dr. King, F.RS., OLE. from 
Java, where he found them growing among the adventitious roots of a coco- 
nut tree—exactly the situation in which Dr, Dalgado found his. But this does 
not necessarily imply, as Dr. Dalgado suggests, that the plant is ‘ parasitic’: 
its habit of growing at the tops of volcanoes—where there certainly is 
nothing living to which it could attach itself—-on ruined temples and 
forts, and in seams of rock, shows not only that is it not ‘parasitic ,’ 
but that it is not even necessarily ‘saprophytic.’ That it prefers a 
situation where it can get plenty of decaying vegetable matter in which to 
bury its roots is no doubt true, for the specimens from rocks and ruins are 
stunted and dwarf, as compared with those from hollow trees. But this is only 
in accordance with the general rule that plants grown in a ‘humus’, rich in 
decaying vegetable matter, thrive better than those grown in thin, bare 
rocky soil. 
The treatment of the plants in cultivation is simple ; they thrive well when 
grown as maiden-hair ferns are grown, 
3 
D, PRAIN. 
HERBARIUM, CaLcurtTa, 7th June, 1893. 
No. IV.—THE ASIATIC WILD ASS. 
In the Field of April 22, under the heading of “The Asiatic Wild 
Ass,” was published an account of the onager, or wild donkey of Kutch, 
This article contains some statements which have, since the publication of 
Captain Nutt’s article in the “ Oriental Sporting Magazine,” entitled “ pens 
Hunting on the Runn of Kutch,” been disproved, 
Mr, Blanford,in his “Fauna of British India,” states that there is no 
instance on record of wild asses being run down by a single horseman, and 
Mr. Tegetmeier also remarks that it is doubtful whether any onager has ever 
been ridden down except in cases of mares heavy in foal, and also states that 
even the young have only been captured by employing relays of horses. 
