44 Recent Literature. [ January, 
course, full of water. Although the mud was soft, it was not 
sticky, and we were able to use our hands for spades very ef- 
fectually. By digging a big hole two feet deep, and standing on 
one’s head in the bottom of it, we were able to reach an arm down 
two feet farther and seize our fish at the bottom of the burrow. 
Lucky it was for us that they had no sharp and poisonous spines, 
like the mud-laff which stung me in Singapore and paralyzed my 
right hand for some hours. 
“ My first fish was hard to get and hard to hold, but in the im- 
mortal words of The Shaughraun, ‘ Begorra, ’twas worth it.’” 
In hunting tigers and elephants, the most dangerous game in 
- the world, Mr. Hornaday proved himself a mighty Nimrod. ‘He 
naturally has much to say of the elephant, and we are surprised 
to learn that in such a populous country as India the animal is 
on the increase. Though at present they are rigidly protected 
by law, it is evident that their number will soon increase to suc 
an extent “as to render further elephant shooting positively 
necessary.” 
The height of the Indian elephant is, the author claims, like 
that of nearly all large animals, usually recorded in exceptional 
figures. “ Even the best scientific writers are apt to fall into the 
habit of giving the largest measurements fairly obtainable, which 
therefore brings the average animal far below the standard they 
set up. I can scarcely recall an instance of having shot a mam- 
mal, even out of a score of the samie species, which came up to 
the measurements recorded by Jerdon in his Mammals of India, 
The height of the male Elephas indicus should be recorded as 
nine feet six inches, vertical measurement, at the shoulder, and 
the female eight feet, for these figures represent the height of 
from eight to twelve individuals to be found in every hundred; in 
other words, animals which can be seen without searching 
throughout the length and breadth of India.” 
e height of the Indian elephant is everywhere recorded as 
from ten to ten and a half feet, but the largest one ever measured © 
“was a tusker described by Mr. Corse in 1799 as belonging to 
Asaph-ul-Daula, a former Vizier of Oudh, which really measured 
ten feet six inches, perpendicularly at the shoulder. This animal 
was merely one out of ten thousand, and it would be quite as 
sensible to measure Chang and record the height of Chinamen 
as being seven and a half feet, as to say that the Indian elephant 
is as tall as the Vizier’s giant.” : 
Our author spent a month with the Dyaks in Borneo, orang 
hunting, his- trophies now adorning the National Museum at 
‘Washington. His account of the two species of orang (Simia 
wurmbu and satyrus) inhabiting Borneo, is detailed, and stamped 
with the mark of accuracy. The nesting habits were observed 
and described as follows: “I got there just in time to see the | 
orang build a large nest for himself. He took up a position in a 
