MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 145 



Perhaps you would like to put the measurements and the event on 

 record in your Journal. 



M. SCINDIA. 



Jai Bilas, Gwaliok, l^itJi April 1914. 



No. III.— THE USE OF A HYENA'S (HYJENA RY^NA) 

 TONGUE AND FAT AS MEDICINE. 



As I should like to seek information on a certain subject I do not think 

 I could do better than address you and trust you will excuse the liberty I 

 have taken. 



A short time ago in company with two friends I went out pigsticking 

 and whilst beating the country we turned out a very decent sized hygena 

 and managed to account for his death by spearing him. 



As we wanted the head and skin we asked our shikaries, mostly Kolis by 

 caste, to skin the animal but this they refused to do, though later by great 

 persuation we managed to get the animal skinned. We brought home the 

 skin and head and the Kolis took away the meat and fat. As soon as 

 news went around that we had killed a hyeena, people from almost all the 

 neighbouring villages came to us and asked us for a little fat and a piece of 

 the hysena's tongue. Upon enquiring the reason for such a request we were 

 told that the fat and tongue was a certain remedy for rheumatism and 

 malformations of any bones. In fact these people expressed their willing- 

 ness to give us whatever we wanted. When we told them what we did 

 with the fat, half of these people went to the village where these Kolis were 

 stopping, but whether they got what they wanted I do not know. What 

 surprised us most was when a Bania came to my place and brought with 

 him his hunch-backed son and wanted a piece of the tongue to apply to his 

 son's back, stating that if he applied the tongue to his son's back the lump 

 on it would disappear. I felt very sorry that there was no tongue left as I 

 should have liked to watch the result. I have also been told that a hysena's 

 tongue is unsurpassable for the cure of splints in horses, but how far this is 

 true I do not know. 



I shall now feel much obliged if you or any of the subscribers to your 

 Society will let me know whether there is any truth in the popular belief 

 that the fat and tongue of a hygena are the best remedies for rheumatism 

 and other malformations of bones and, if true, what qualities there are in a 

 hypena's tongue to be able to remove splints in a horse's leg. 



N. V. RINGEOW. 



AssARA via Deesa, 21st April 1914. 



[We publish this as we cannot remember ever having' heard such thing's being- 

 attributed to the hysena in India, but in Anderson's Zoolog-y of Egypt, Mammalia, 

 Mr. Beadnell, in some field notes on the same species says :" The natives (in the Nile 

 Valley) are very keen to obtain the heart, which they eat, believing- that they thus 

 obtain the courage (sic) of the hysena. They also cut off the whiskers, if they get 

 a chance, and keep them as a charm. The meat is also readily eaten by the poorer 

 among them, and I found myself that the flesh taken from the head was uot at all 

 bad." This animal is usually looked down on in India by the natives as being" 

 CO wardly . — Eds . ] 



No. IV.— A BROWN VARIETY OF THE SLOTH BEAR 

 {MELURSUS URSINUS). 



Last Xmas when shooting in the Hazaribagh Jungles I shot a Brown 

 Bear. Can you or any of the readers of your Journal teU me what this is ? 



19 



