136 BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 
oi the ground, and the strident call of the peacock re-echoes through the jungle ; a 
loud shrill-voiced bird repeats its one note, answered by two others in different 
parts of the jungle ; then more join in. 
* Two large owls (?sp.) come and have a drink and a bathe, making a hoarse low 
whistle. A night-jar flits past with its squeaky note, and later a large yellow thing 
noisily drops down from the bank and drinks, and I— but what is the use of raking 
up old sores! : 
“T should have mentioned that I saw another bird, which I noted as a black 
drongo-like bird, with erectile crest and a long almost filamentous tail feather, with 
a widened web at the end. This, I suppose, would be Dissemorus paradiseus. What 
is particularly noticeable in the jungle to the dweller in cantonment is towards 
evening the number of loud-voiced birds, with peculiar notes; but I could never 
manage to get near enough to identify.” 
I have a note on the 30th May: “ I have not noticed any squeaking night-jars 
lately ; perbaps those which have this call are a particular species ; nor lately have I 
heard the doves ‘put all straight, though there are plenty about. I have always 
been defeated in trying to ascertain what dove is always repeating ‘ pud all straight. 
It may not strike other people, but the words seem as plain to me,as ‘Did he do it? 
of Lobivanellus indicus. 1 hear ‘put all straigh? at all hours of the day and night.” 
One evening I saw a small hawk, about the size of a merlin, but whieh I could 
not identify, flying off with some bird almost as large as itself, which turned out to 
be the Golden-baeked Woodpecker (B. auranéius). 
I saw many sambur during May, but they had all shed their horns; there were 
plenty of horned cheetul. The Barking or Rib-faced Deer also appear all to have 
shed their horns carly as April. 
Whilst sitting in a machan, I frequently experienced the rain, which is alluded 
to in the “ Indian Forester” of October 1878 thus: “An American tree, which also 
yields a sweet nutritious food, has been much more successful than the larch. 
Vhis is the Péthecolobium saman, a native of Peru, which from its supposed property 
of inducing local showers is, in that country, known as the ‘ Rain tree?” An 
exact description and explanation of the phenomenon, which gave rise to this 
name, has only quite recently been given in the columns of the English periodical 
Nature by Dr. Dyer, who quotes from the eminent South American traveller, Mr. 
Spruce, as follows: “ A little after 7 o’clock we came under a lowish spreading 
tree, from which with a perfectly clear sky overhead a smart rain was falling. A 
glance upwards showed a multitude of Cicadas sucking the juice of the tender 
young branches and leaves, and squirting forth slender streams of limpid fluid. 
. We had barely time to rote this when we were assailed by swarms of a large black 
ant, * * * which ants were greedily licking up the fluid as it fell.’ Iam glad 
that my experience fell short of the ants. 
I close this with a small episode, of which the moral is that people should 
be careful in recording the oceurrence of any unusual beast or bird, which is not 
in the hand. One morning I was taking up a newcamp near a jungle tank, and 
on approaching my camping ground, I passed along a track, through a little long 
grass, talking to the natives who accompanied me, about where I should camp. After 
passing this and going on along the edge of the tank fur about 200 yards, I happened 
ee 
