MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 
797 
that creeper bedecked tree as being a likely place for a squirrel. Hardly have 
you focussed on the creepers when there is a scuny from the old spot and you 
are just in time to see something small and brou-n disappear into a patch of tmder- 
growth some three or four yards to the right. Once again you freeze and stare 
but this time, just as yoiu- eyes are beginning to smart, there is a jump, jump, 
and you see something small and browm among leaves of the same colour, but it 
might be anything. Then once again there is the “ tch tch ” and a little brown 
beast starts to move, lifting each foot carefully and with its tail all of a bristle 
and “ half cocked ” if I may use such an expression. “ Tch Tch Tch Tch ” 
it calls and ■with each sound the tail gives a twdtch. It has now reached the 
edge of the cover and is deciding whether the next cover can be reached in one 
or two short sharp rushes. Its mind made up, it streaks across the open in a 
series of rapid jumps. Not half away across it spots you and becomes suddenly 
motionless, all four feet together, back arched and tail inclined almost parallel 
to its back. Thus it remains for a few seconds, too terrified to think properly, 
then making up its mind to chance it, it dashes across the remaining distance to 
cover. Curiosity is said to have done do’wn the cat but the tree-shrew, in common 
with all living creatures, has its full share and if you remain quiet you ■wiU see 
that this is so. There ! it jumped on to that creeper and is now behind that 
leaf. Another jump and it is in ftdl ^^ew directly facing you. Its head now 
starts to bob up and down in a hawk-like fashion and its tail, aU a bristle, 
t'witches simultaneously. It has settled in its mind that you are only a stump 
so hops along among the creepers and is on to the ground again nosing among 
the fallen leaves for insects. It pauses a moment with head bowed and mouth 
open while ■nith one paw it picks its teeth. While doing this one might almost 
imagine it a miniature mongoose, in fact in many of its movements there is some- 
thing very mongoose -like. Just when you are getting really interested in 
watching the little nerve ridden beast a squirrel gives the warning “ hawk 
over ” and the tree-shrew darts back into cover again. 
Though I never came across the young and am unable to give information 
as to the time of year in which they are born, I found that the adults were courting 
in January. During the period of courtship the tree-shrew is more in evidence 
though not, as I found, so often trapped. Love evidently aboUshes hunger ! 
The males as far as I could judge positively refuse to take NO for an answer, though 
whether like some married men, they afterwards wish to goodness they had, 
I know not. I watched for a considerable time a couple chasing around and 
while the chase was in progress an occasional shrill twittering cry would come 
from them both, no doubt meaning something as different in each case as the 
.sex which uttered it. Eventually (feehng no doubt exhausted) the female 
jumped into a creeper about two inches off the ground and turned facing the 
male. Though I was within a few feet of the pair I heard nothing beyond an 
occasional very low chortle but the tails of both kept up a continual twitching 
and doubtless that, and facial expression were ample language for the occasion. 
When the lady was rested she fled, screaming in the same shrill twitter “ I loathe 
you, nothing will ever induce me to become your wife.” “ Consent is the least 
part of it ” was the reply as her lover scampered after her and I thought at the 
time of an old song, in regard to a persistent lover, entitled “ The villain still 
pursued her.” 
The tree-shrew is an exceedingly agile little beast and can, like a mongoose, 
jump with the same rapidity backwards, sideways or forward. Being very 
tenacious of life quite a number escape from the traps and the more badly in- 
jured ones may sometimes be found at a little distance from the traps stiU en- 
deavouring to get away. I find that it is a good thing to look for blow-flies 
in a case where an animal has escaped as, if it is unable, as is often the case, to 
do more than crawl, these flies get busy on it and I think it is beyond doubt 
that where these flies are, something dead or smelly or both will be found. 
