﻿34 FIELD AND FOREST. 



GLEANINGS IN FOREIGN FIELDS. 



A Curious Coincidence. — Sir John Lubbock, in Ins work on 

 '•' Pre-historic Times," and other writers, have lately shown us how 

 well the habits of primeval man may be illustrated by the manners and 

 customs of modern savages, and I have met with an interesting fact of 

 a similar nature. In chapter viii., p. 279, of "Pre-historic Times," 

 there is an interesting quotation from a paper in the Transactions of 

 the Academy of Science of St. Luiis, 1857, p. 61, by Dr. A. 

 C. Koch, who describes the remains of a mastodon found in 

 Gasconade County, which had apparently been stoned to death by the 

 Indians, and then partially consumed by fire. The fire, he says, was 

 evidently "not an accidental one; but, on the contrary, it had been 

 kindled by human agency, and, according to all appearance, with the 

 design of killing the huge creature which had been found mired in the 

 mud in an entirely helpless condition." The bones were found stand- 

 ing up in the clay, and only those above the surface were charred. 

 There were also broken pieces of rock, from the river near, and 

 pebbles, none of Avhich were in situ in the clay, but apparently fetched 

 from the river banks, where there was a layer of them. Mingled with 

 the ashes, bones, and rocks, were arrow-heads, stone spear-heads and 

 axes; and a stone spear-head was found under the thigh-bone of the 

 skeleton, actually in contact with it. Curiously enough, in G. W. 

 Earl's work on "The Papuans" (Balliere, London,) p. 154, we read 

 the following, respecting the Lemangs, a degraded Negritto race, sup- 

 posed to be the aborigines of the Malayan peninsula, extracted from 

 the fourth volume of the " Journal of the Indian Archipelago." " The 

 rhinoceros they obtain with even less difficulty. This animal, which 

 is of solitary habits, is found frequently in marshy places, with its 

 whole body immersed in the mud, and part of the head only visible. 

 The Malays call the animal ' Badak Tapa,' or the recluse rhinoceros. 

 Towards the close of the rainy season, they are said to bury themselves 

 in this manner in different places ; and upon the dry weather setting 

 in, and from the powerful effects of a vertical sun, the mud becomes 

 hard and crusted, and the rhinoceros cannot effect its escape without 

 considerable difficulty and exertion. The Lemangs prepare themselves 

 with large quantities of combustible materials, with which they quietly 

 approach the animal, who is aroused from his reverie by an immense 



