982 BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCINTY. 
however, all seemed dwarfed, and none of the stags had heads of any 
size worth mentioning. The climate is rather cold in winter for 
them there, and this may account for it. It was in the month of 
August, the cold weather there, when I saw them, and at that time 
the stags had their horns. I saw none in velvet. In the month of 
August in India, sambhur would be in velvet, of course. As these 
sambhur increased, they were from time to time turned down wild in 
the neighbouring hills, and I was told they thrive in a wild state. 
THE MEANS OF SELF-PROTECTION POSSESSED 
Bi EUANTS: 
( Read at the Society’s Meeting on 6th September 1888.) 
By De, W, Dymoox. 
Tax number of destructive insects which abound in India 
render it very necessary that plants should have some means of 
protecting the stores of starch which they elaborate for future use. 
Amongst the starch-storers there is no class in this country more 
abundant than the Aroide, especially at this season of the year. 
Some plants of the genus, such as the Amorphophallus campanu- 
latus, or YT, produce enormous tubers under cultivation, weighing 
as much as eight or ten pounds or more, and composed almost 
entirely of starch. Different kinds of Colocasia, known in the 
vernacular as 87%, are always to be seen in the gardens, of even the 
poorest people, during the rainy season ; and their leaves, stems, and 
tubers are favourite articles of food amongst all classes of the popu- 
lation. The leaves especially made into a roll with gram flour, and 
spices, boiled, and then cut in slices and fried, form a very tasty 
vegetable dish called qraagt or qaag, i.e., “ leaf-cake.”” The Colo- 
castia antiquorum is one of the oldest vegetables known, and derives 
its Latin name from the Coptic Kalkasi. Pliny notices it as a 
favourite vegetable in Hgypt. - Most of the varieties of Colocasia 
and other edible Aroids are so acrid that it is only by prolonged 
boiling and the addition of some vegetable condiments containing 
citrates that they can be made palatable; they all die away in the 
dry weather after producing one or more tubers. It must be 
