344 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL RLST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXIII. 



No. III.— A RECORD PANTHER. 



I send a photo of a panther shot by Alec Murray, Indian Police, in this 

 district last year (or rather of its skin as this is the only photo Mr. Murray 

 was able to get) which will I think interest you. The animal measured 

 before skinning 8' 7f" measured straight between pegs fixed at tip of nose 

 and tip of tail and as far as Mr. Murray has been able to find out this is 

 an absolute record. It was shot at Khara, Banda Tahsil, Banda District, 

 U. P., in April 1913. 



On the back of the photo is an outline of the ' lucky bone ' of this 

 panther. This bone measures 2xt" round the outer curve. 



I shall be glad to know if the size is a record and to have the photo 

 back after you have made any use you like of it. 



D. R. H. BROWNE, 

 Executive Engineer, P. W. D. 

 Banda, U. P., 22,vd June 1914. 



[ The photograph is not reproduced as it v> as only the photograph of the 

 skin and not of the panther. 8' 7-|'' measured straight certainly seems to be a 

 record = It is a pity Mr- Murray did not take separate measurements also of the 

 head and body and the tail. — -Eds,] 



No. IV.— THE ATTITUDES AND MOVEMENTS OF THE LARGE 

 RED FLYING-SQUIRREL— P^2'^?7i2/6'2'^ INORNATUS. 



By R. W. G. Hingston, I.M.S. 



( With a plate.) 



If we cast a glance over the world of animated Nature we see all living 

 creatures adapted most beautifully to the varied conditions of their 

 existence. But the most strange and wondrous of all these adaptations, 

 and those which most powerfully excite our interest, are the various modifi- 

 cations by which a small group of any great class of animals becomes fitted 

 for a sphere of life different from that which the great majority of its 

 members enjoy. Strange is the structure of those wild sea-birds which live 

 in equal happiness floating upon the surface of the ocean, chasing their fishy 

 prey in the depths beneath, soaring in the air above or peacefully resting 

 on the rockj'- shore. We wonder not at that host of mammals which live 

 but on the surface of the earth, that part of the economy of Nature for 

 which they seem to have been definitely created, but when we see great 

 groups of them wandering into the domains of other creatures, into the air 

 or into the sea, we cannot but believe that they are abberant branches of 

 the great ancestral stock that once occupied the land, and we stand amazed 

 at the beauty of the adaptations with which Nature has fitted them for 

 their anomalous existence. The mighty Cetaceans of the ocean are more 

 astonishing than the greatest Pachyderms of the land, the bat, which lives 

 a bird-like life in the air, is more surprising than any mammal that walks 

 upon the earth; and when we see a rodent adapted for movement on the 

 solid ground, for climbing up the trunks and along the branches of the trees 

 and for a beautiful gliding motion through the thin air, we are filled with 

 admiration at the manner in which Nature has formed such a creature for 

 the different spheres in which it dwells. The Flying Squirrel Hves this 

 three-fold life, on the ground, in the tree-top and through the air. 



On the ground (Fig. 1). 



Though the solid earth must not be considered as the main centre of 

 activity in which this species lives, yet it is well adapted for movement on 



