792 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXVIII. 
were not human. I thought of the carpenter frogs which come to our Jersey 
pine barrens in the spring. These are of a different family and their ham- 
mering has a clattering, less deliberate ring. The New Jersey ‘ Carpenters ’ 
always soimd to me like a crowd of boys laying shingles, while the clear measured 
clap of these hammers could be compared only with that of a skilled workman. 
First I followed an did agave-grown wall, then another stone wall running to 
the bannana field. It was a different world at night. My light fell first upon a 
giant centipede, more than eight inches in length, putting into service every one 
of its many legs for a rapid escape up the trail. Numerous jewels shone on the 
periphery of the light. Some of these on investigation proved to be nothing but 
drops of water, others of a deeper glow were the eyes of spiders. A little farther 
on a glimpse of two close-set headhghts, followed by a creature’s wild rush through 
a thicket, told me that I had disturbed an opossum in its nocturnal wanderings. 
The hammering became mucTi louder as I approached the bannana patch. 
I realized that the hammerers were not aU in the bannana plants ; some were 
in the old stone wall, and others in the agave plants. I started toward one of the 
performers, but another caUing nearer at hand turned me aside, and before I 
had fairly well started, it seemed much easier to run down a third. It was only 
after I had concentrated my entire attention on the pounding of one of these 
Huancabamba ‘ Carpenters ’ that I had any success at all, and then it seemed 
so easy. The performers were not the least disconcerted by the spot light. ” 
No. II.— JUNGLE NOTES. 
The Tiger making the “ Sambhar Call.” 
Mr. Hugh Copley writes to us on the above subject as follows :■ — 
“ When away on Christmas Camp and enjoying the blaze of a jolly fire we 
heard the call of a sambhar which every night came to drink below us within 
half a mile followed by the tiger ‘ sambhar ’ call if I might call it so. The 
sambhar and the tiger called after each other for ten minutes during which time 
we had called up two Bigas who confirmed each caU as it was made. 
Now the call although ahke (and would be sworn to as alike by the average 
man) is not so by any means. Firstly the sambhar call is higher in pitch, more 
musical and also shorter and finishes clear. The tiger ‘ sambhar ’ call is lower, 
more chesty, and not clear cut. This call given by itself might easily be mistaken 
but the two calling together educated the listener to the difference verj” 
quickly. 
It is known and proved by experiments that the ear drum of man 
has by evolution changed considerably since the time we were cave 
men, and is rapidly (used in its correct sense with reference to evolution) 
changing to receive wave lengths of much shorter length, such as the 
noises of civihsation heard towns, so that we cannot, as we once did, receive 
and interpret lower or longer wave lengths. You have only to see bush tribes 
(hunters) in Central Africa at work, to reahse how they receive and interpret 
lower wave lengths. Now the same thing occurs in a much greater degree 
with animals and I doubt very much if any animal mistakes the sambhar call 
for that of the tiger ‘ sambhar ’ call. Therefore this caU is not used by the 
tiger with any idea of luring the poor imsuspecting sambhar to his doom. 
Secondly it would be a cute animal to lure a C.F. sambhar to any doom. This 
view is also held by theBigas. 
It therefore must I think be a mate call but this vdll be a very difficult thing 
to find out.” 
