MISCELLANEOUS NOTES, 443 
his mark, and the quail—a grey one—rose, and a pretty bit of aérial coursing 
ensued. But to my surprise the quail had six to four the best of it and got 
away by sheer speed. It upset all one’s theories of make and shape to see a 
heavy-bodied, short, round-winged bird like this easily distance the lithe, long- 
pointed, winged harrier in a fair run. One could only say “they run in all 
shapes.” 
I have several times, during the last few years, seen snipe on the ground. 
On one occasion I found two on the edge of a dirty village pond, between 9 
and 10 a.m., running about and pecking in the mud with sand-pipers, pond 
herons, and other low company. I shot them both, and on examination they 
proved to be fantails. Is this not rather against Hume’s account of their 
habits ? 
The snipe up here have contracted a perfectly pestiferous habit 
of lying out in the middle of jhils on the rushes and weeds and coming 
in to feed on the cut rice stubble, etc, after dusk, when you cannot 
see to shoot them. The other day I’ walked up a likely bit of ground 
on the edge of a jhil:and put up three birds only. Returning to camp 
just before six, L crossed the same bit of rice field, and the birds got up 
all round me in sixes and sevens. There were at least twenty couple of 
them. 
Thad an opportunity lately of seeing some wild cattle, or more properly 
speaking, cattle whose progenitors ran wild. They imhabited a swampy 
jungle, from the fastnesses of which they sallied forth morning and evening 
to harry the adjacent fields. In colour the bulk of the herd were white or 
grey, and far superior in size to anything one sees in the villages of the 
N. W.P. I rode up to within 40 yards of a solitary bull and inspected him. 
He was a remarkably fine animal, and would have passed for an unusually 
good specimen of the wandering bull turned loose as a calf by some pious 
Hindu but for one peculiarity. His general colour was grey, but over the 
hump, shoulders, posterior portion of the neck, running down almost to the 
edge of the dewlap, he had a jet black mantle, giving him a peculiar, not to 
say weird, appearance. The same morning I came across a second bachelor, 
a well-known budmash, who charged any one who approached him. He 
was a really magnificent beast, and wore the same sombre mantle as the first. 
I did not see the bull who led the herd, but the villagers reported him as 
“‘burra jungi” and said he also had the same black marking. 1 should like to 
know if others have noticed this curious black mantle in cattle that have 
run wild. It is certainly unlike anything I have ever seen in domesticated 
bovines. 
I have several times, in the last few years, coursed and killed the desert 
fox in the Meerut district, Speaking from memory, Jerdon notes its occurrence 
in Hissar and near Amballa, but I have seen no record of any being found in 
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