560 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. VlU. 



least as much as one can be amused with one's temperature about 104° F. — one 

 evening sitting over a kill to see the scared way in which a jackal tried to snatch 

 a little meat from the kill ; however he unfortunately did not remain until 

 the panther came, which it did very shortly and gave me a shot on which 

 I would stake my life, but I was so weak and shaky that I missed. 



A common jungle cat (F. chaus) annoyed me at one camp ; why it should 

 have such confidence in man I cannot imagine ; in this case it was misplaced ; it 

 sat at the corner of my servants' tent one night and let me, without any stalking, 

 walk up and shoot it— range 5 yards. 



When I was sitting up on one of the occasions above mentioned, an animal 

 which I take to be the long-tailed mongoose (H.jerdoni) with great circumspec- 

 tion came up to the kill, sitting up every now and then to have a look round ; 

 though it sniffed all round the carcass, yet it did not touch it ; it, I fancy, smelt 

 our foot-steps and was afraid. 



I yesterday found a musk-rat in my bath, but as this is Sambalpur, it cannot 

 count. At one of my camps a wolf was reported to have jogged slowly through 

 my camp ; I was out for my evening walk at the time, so did not myself see it. 



I think that with the hyaena, of which I saw two, and the hare, of which I 

 came across about six, I have closed my list of quadrupeds. 



As regards man himself, the country I was in was too civilized for jungle 

 tribes, such as Gonds and Bheels ; I came across one or two individuals who 

 were not cultivators, and that is all. The Europeanized shikari is also develop- 

 ing ; I even saw one of my shikaris — a well-known one to those who have 

 shot in these parts — walking about in the sun in December with an umbrella 

 of the bazaar type opened, in addition to being covered up more or less with 

 cast-off Europe clothes. 



It must be remembered in cold weather shooting that in November, on 

 account of the rice harvest, there are difficulties in getting beaters together. 

 Again in the grass districts, in the latter half of February grass-cutting is going 

 on, which disturbs the whole place. The language of the country is Hindi. 



I will now turn to the birds. I must first state that on account of more than 

 two years' absence from the country my ornithology has grown rusty, and kil- 

 ling a bird merely for the sake of putting a name to it is now rather repugnant 

 to me. Raipur is what is called a tank district ; do not imagine that this means 

 it resembles Guzerat ; on the contrary it means that water is very scarce and 

 that the inhabitants draw their water-supply from tanks ; at one village I was 

 at, the water of the universal tank already stank ; what it will be like in the hot 

 weather can be imagined. In Eaipur I did not shoot a single duck with the 

 exception of one teal ; I saw a few duck on one tank ; on suitable tanks there 

 are generally whistling teal and cotton teal. The flock of common teal, out 

 of which I shot one, were the only teal I saw. Snipe were- exceedingly scarce ; 

 I am told it is a very bad year in this district for both duck and teal ; I saw 

 two painted snipe and no jack. Her (Bosna, which is maidan) there are one 



