226 JOURNAL, BOMB A Y NA TUBAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol IX. 



and head of the other. One front leg was attached to the body. Two or 

 three more legs had been cut off, which probably accounted for the further 

 snipping I heard after the head was off, and a good deal of the body was eaten. 

 The head held on to a bit of grass that I put into its mouth ; and the body 

 wriggled and the wings fluttered several minutes after they were separated. 



The larger fly was about three inches and a half long, the other scarcely a 

 quarter of an inch shorter. Both were of the same kind with transparent 

 wings, body darkish-brown, with a bright steel-blue patch of a light shade in 

 rear of the wings — more of it on the under than the upper side. The tail 

 part had a pale yellow ring at the point of each section, the rest brownish. 



Speaking of this to a friend, he said that he had seen a similar case, only 

 that the larger fly had attacked the other one's back and went on eating him 

 even after being picked up and laid on the open hand. 



I knew that dragon flies were voracious, but not that they had cannibalistic 

 tastes. 



RICHARD ROBERTS. 



Secunderabad, September, 1894. 



No. VIII— A BISON CALF. 



{With a Plate) 



The Bison Calf whose photograph is given in this number of the Journal 

 was captured during a shooting expedition to the Neilampathy hills in the 

 Native State of Cochin, Southern India, in August, 1892. One afternoon towards 

 the close of the monsoon, I was out looking for Ibex which frequent some 

 high cliffs at the head of a fine open grassy down ; the day had been very 

 misty, at times one could not see two yards ahead, but every now and then 

 the fog would roll away, and the fine open downs — high picturesque cliffs with 

 the sunny plains stretching away below the hills — would appear for a short 

 time. A bison was sighted some 400 yards off lying down near the edge of an 

 open grass slope near the cliffs and a very considerable distance from cover. 

 From its position and large size I took it for a solitary bull and began to 

 consider the best way to approach for a shot, when it suddenly got up and 

 moved slowly away uphill, stopping every now and then to look back. One of 

 the shikarees declared he saw a small calf lying down close to the place where 

 the bison had been lying. I followed the cow, the shikaree going down after the 

 calf. The cow trotted away when she saw me coming, and after a time passed 

 through a small wood. I fired to frighten her when some distance away. 

 She broke at once into a gallop, and disappeared over a hill. I then returned 

 to where I left the shikaree ; he, in the meantime, had gone down and caught 

 the calf, tied his turban round its neck and hauled it up the hillside, it being far 

 too heavy to carry on his back. It proved to be a bull-calf scarcely a week old. 

 It was, of course, in a terrible state of alarm, and I had great trouble in getting 



