206 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



A Naturalist on the Prowl; or, In the Jungle. By 

 Eha, author of "The Tribes on My Frontier," 

 and " Behind the Bungalow." With 80 illustra- 

 tions by R. A. Sterndale, F.R.G.S., F.Z.S., author 

 and illustrator of "Mammalia of India," "Denizens 

 of the Jungle," etc. (London : W. Thacker and 

 Co., 87, Newgate Street; Calcutta: Thacker, 

 Spink and Co., 1894.) Price 8s. 6d. 



Those who have already read, and as a conse- 

 quence enjoyed, "The Tribes on my Frontier," 



Lemur. 



From " A Naturalist on the Prowl. 



will need no recommendation of Eha's latest 

 volume. The author is a keen observer of nature, 

 and is the possessor of a faculty not too common 

 among naturalists — a strong sense of humour. At 

 times, however, the humour appears to us some- 

 what thin and cheap, and not in keeping with the 

 important matters he has in hand. However, we 

 believe most of our readers would appreciate the 

 freshness of Eha's style and of his subjects, 

 which are selected from the denizens of the West 

 Coast of India. Here is a brief sample of the 

 author's style, taken at random from the chapter 

 on " Caterpillars " : — 



" Caterpillar-hunting is an art, and if you wish 

 to excel in it you must be well grounded in the 

 principles of caterpillar life. Of these, the most 

 fundamental is that a caterpillar is a little, creature 

 ordained to be eaten. To avert this fate is the 

 continual aim, not only of all it does, but of all it 

 is. This may not seem quite logical, but I have no 

 time to cavil just now. From books, and more 

 especially from instruc- 

 tive little papers upon 

 protective mimicry and 

 such subjects, you will 

 learn to take it for 

 granted that when a 

 caterpillar is eaten, a 

 bird is the eater. Un- 

 y. " , \ learn this. Upon the 



whole, I think birds are 

 the least important of 

 a caterpillar's enemies. 

 At first, when it is so 

 minute that a bird 

 would not be at the 

 trouble to pick it up, 

 it is exposed to the 

 cruelty and rapacity of 

 hordes of ants of many 

 tribes, which scour 

 every tree and shrub, 

 sipping the nectar in 

 the flowers, licking the 

 glands at the bases of 

 the leaves, milking the 

 Aphides, and looting and 

 ravaging wherever they 

 go. Besides ants, every 

 tree swarms with spiders, not web spiders, but 

 wolf spiders, which run about in quest of their 

 prey. Then come wasps and ichneumons, and 

 these, from the caterpillar point of view, are of 

 two sorts, those which will carry him to their 

 own quarters for the food of their children, and 

 those which will quarter their children on him, 

 or, I should say, in him. Finally, the few that 

 have survived all these dangers have to run the 

 gauntlet of the birds, the restless little tree-warblers 

 and sun-birds and bulbuls and tailor-birds, which 

 haunt the foliage of the forest and the garden from 

 morning till night. Some means must be devised 

 whereby at least a few, say one per cent., of the 

 caterpillars which are produced may escape all 

 these perils and arrive at maturity, or else the race 

 will become extinct. By far the most successful 

 expedient that has been tried is loathsomeness ; there 

 are some caterpillars which no decent birds will 

 touch. But the taste of a bird is different from 

 that of a fly. What the one loathes the other may 

 love, and no caterpillar can carry two flavours at 

 once ; accordingly I find that those caterpillars 

 which are perfectly secure from birds, are the very 

 kind which suffer most from ichneumons." 





