MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 775 



No. VII.— OCCURRENCE OF THE BARKING DEER {MUNTIACUS 



VAGINALLY) AND A FEW OTHER ANIMALS IN 



KATHIAWAR. 



I notice in Report No. lO of our Society's Mammal Survey of India, 

 that it is stated by Mr. Crump, the Collector, that the Barking Deer is 

 found in the Gir, and that one evening he heard one barking {vide page 

 471, Vol. XXII, No. 3, of the Journal). 



I am quite confident that Mr. Crump must have been mistaken, for at 

 different times, I hav^e camped for weeks together in the Gir, where I was 

 continually wandering through ev^ery nook and corner of it, but I never 

 came across, or even heard, of a Barking Deer. I have also spent many 

 weeks in the Girnar, the Barda Hills, and the Tanga or jungle country 

 around Chotila to the north and west of Rajkot, but everywhere, the 

 deer in question, was conspicuous by its absence. 



The Four-horned Antelope (Tetraceros quadncornis) which in the local 

 vernacular is called Guntdda (not Guntla) is common enough in the Gir, 

 but the bucks rarely carry more than the two posterior horns. The latter 

 are also to be found in the Girnar and the Barda Hills, but are compara- 

 tively scarce in both these localities. 



Mr. Crump also remarks that he was unable to obtain any information 

 regarding the Ant-eater {Mmds crassicaudata). They are exceedingly 

 scarce, but are to be found in Kathiawar. I only saw one during the 

 17 years I was there, which was brought to me by a local Wdgri at 

 Rajkot. 



Another animal of which Mr. Crump was unable to obtain any informa- 

 tion, is the Hunting Leopard {Cyneelurus jubatus). I have never heard of 

 one in the Gir but it is hardly the kind of country they prefer. The only 

 localities where I hare heard of their ever having been seen or shot, are 

 in the Tanga country extending from Than under Lakhtar, eastwards 

 through Chotila, Chobari Babra, right away across. Jasdan Somnath, to 

 the neighbourhoods of Vinchia and Tasdan. Mr. S. A. Strip of Wadhwan 

 Camp shot one some 20 miles or less south of Wadhwan. The only live 

 ones I saw during my sojourn in Kathiawar were two which 1 helped to 

 spear in the neighbourhood of Rajkot where they had undoubtedly 

 wandered from the districts I have already mentioned. 



L. L. FENTON, Lieut.-Col. 



Maksh Hall, South Molton, 



N, Devon, 2'drd November 1914. 



No. VIII.— THE BALEEN OF THE GREAT INDIAN FIN- WHALE 

 {BALjENOPTERA in Die A). 



In the last number of the Society's journal mention was made of a whale 

 {Balcenoptera indica) which was stranded at Viziadrug in the Ratnagiri Dis- 

 trict. . Mr. Crump, as was mentioned, was sent to obtain measurements of 

 this whale but unfortunately it was too far gone for him to obtain any. He 

 however brought back a number of blades of baleen and the accompanying 

 block is a photograph of some of these blades. The largest blade measures 

 about 26" in length, the bristles being about 7" more and the breadth at the 

 base is about 9" and in colour it was bluish-black. Numerous illustrations 

 of the baleen of different whales have been published but we have not 

 access to any at present except the one which appeared in Mr. Orjan Olsen's 

 paper on the newly described S. African whale {Bal(snopterabrydei), Bryde's 

 whale, in the P.Z.S., 1913, p. XII. This plate shows that the bristles of the 



