MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 499 



who -was in attendance had only brought a saw which was useless, but the 

 superintendent produced a pair of good rose clippers and very soon had all the 

 claws cut. Some of them had grown into the flesh nearly an inch and had 

 caused nasty sores, but the worst place of all was the toe from which the 

 tiger had torn the claw. The bone was exposed, and there was a sinus about 

 three inches long from which at least a hundred maggots were taken. It 

 looked so bad that I almost made up my mind to shoot the poor beast there 

 and then. However, the places were dressed with antiseptics and we agreed to 

 see how they looked next day. The tiger seemed none the worse for the op- 

 eration and took his food as usual. Next day the same process had to be gone 

 through, but on this occasion only ten men manned the bars and pressed the 

 tiger down, and we found them quite sufficient, the only difficulty was when 

 the beast sat up, when no amount of pressure would induce him to bend his 

 forelegs, the only thing then was to lever his hindquarters and throw him 

 on his side, which was easily done. The wounds looked so much better that 

 there seemed a prospect of their healing, so every day the tiger was thus 

 pinioned and the sores dressed, and on the 15th April, after forty-five days 

 confinement, he was put back into his own run completely cured and with 



all his claws in order. 



H. S. FERGUSON, f.l.s., 



Hon. Secy., G-ovt. Public Gardens, Trevandrum. 

 26th April, 1895. 



No. XVIII— THE FOOD OF THE KRAIT. 



A few days ago Mr. F. L. Muir, of this place, sent me a krait (Bungavus 

 arcuatus) which he had killed while it was in the act of swallowing another 

 snake {Dipsas goltool). He writes as follows : — " They were found about 

 six o'clock in the morning on a sort of rockery, round one of the neem trees 

 in our compound. I went out to see them and found the krait with only 

 its head out of a hole in the rockery, gradually swallowing the other snake 

 which was hanging down the rockery with its tail firmly twisted round a 

 tuft of grass. I watched them for a long time, the krait very gradually 

 getting the Dipsas further into its mouth. The exertion of doing this gra- 

 dually drew it from its hole, and eventually the two fell to the ground and 

 I killed them both." The Dipsas measured 2' 9|" and was much thicker than 

 the krait, having a large lizard, a foot long, in its stomach. The krait 

 measured only 2' feet ; so it is difficult to see what would have eventually 



happened. 



FF W. H. TRAILL. 



Jhansi, April, 1895. 



[As far as my experience goes the food of the krait consists almost entirely 



of other snakes, and we recently received a specimen which contained a young 



Dhaman {Zamenis mucosus) several inches longer than its host ; showing that 



the lesser can contain the greater, provided it is capable of expansion.— 



Ed.] 



