The investigation of these varieties of tigers and leopards would be of great assistance to zoology, as most probably more than one species remain to be discovered, and sportsmen and travellers would do great service to science by taking every opportunity of clearing up the question.

Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. N. L. Austen.

No. 3. Why do the natives pillage the whiskers, claws, and fat of the dead tiger? If they use them for charms, against what particular evil are they supposed to be

efficacious? The natives burn tigers’ whiskers, not as a species of insult, but because they imagine they are deadly poison. They firmly believe that a tiger’s whisker chopped up and introduced into anyono’s food will assuredly cause his death. I have heard them

mention the names of people supposed to have been poisoned in this way. To prevent the possibility of being themselves put out of the world by this method, they destroy the whiskers as soon after the tiger’s death as possible. The claws they hang round their children’s necks as a charm against “ evil eye.” Natives fully believe that many individuals have the power of casting the evil eye, and they are as fully persuaded of the efficacy of this charm. Tiger’s fat they consider a cure for rheumatism, and the smoke of burnt tiger’s meat as a remedy for many other diseases.—J., Central India.

On lone occasion, when I had been fortunate enough to bag three tigers, on their arrival at the tent a large number of natives collected round to look at them; my shikarie, however, would not allow any person to come near them until he had first singed off the whiskers of the tigers. When I remonstrated with him, and asked his reason for disfiguring them, he replied that they always made a point of doing so to prevent any malicious person getting possession of the whiskers, as the bristles chopped up and placed in a person’s food would bring on internal inflammation and cause their death. Not being a medical man, I cannot say whether it would be likely to have that effect or not.

The claws are worn by children as charms, and are supposed by the natives to ward off all manner of evils. I never saw them worn by grown-up persons. The oil made from the fat is considered a good remedy for rheumatism, and the flesh, if given to a child to eat, is supposed to make it very strong.-— SlNGROWLEE. The whiskers are considered a most deadly poison; and it is almost impossible to avoid their being pulled out or singed off, to prevent their being made use of by some enemy. As a magis- j trate, I have received petitions informing me that such a person was in possession of tiger whiskers, and praying that they should be taken away, &c. If you question a native about them, he can give you no distinct notion of how they are to be used, though I have been told that the hairs are cut up into small pieces, and so given in bread, from which death is sure to ensue. The claws of the tiger are much prized by all classes, from the highest j

noble or richest banker to the most lowly; they are sup* posed to keep off the evil eye, to prevent fever and other ailments. You generally see them worn, set in gold, round thp neck of the young son and heir of the family. The claws of the last tiger I shot, about three years ago, were eagerly begged of me by some of the first nobles in the Punjaub. The skin of the same animal was ruined as a specimen, though now in my drawing-room, by the whiskers being pulled out whilst I had turned my back for a few minutes. The fat of the tiger is, again, much prized to rub into the back and to make men lusty! Again, the tongue or a bit of the heart is frequently given by elephant drivers to the elephant they have charge of, to make him fearless.-—C. B. The natives burn the whiskers from superstitious motives. They use the claws as charms, hanging them by a string round the necks of women and children. Thus used, they are supposed to do almost anything—bring luck, produce children, keep off tigers—according to taste of wearers.-—M. B., 72nd Highlanders.

By “ The Pield ” of the 12th inst., it appears to me that very few, even amongst old Indians, know the real reason why the natives of India are so anxious to secure the whiskers of a tiger. If allowed, I will now, through you, give them the required information, which is as follows: A native imagines that should he by any means be able to get a man to take internally, by way of food or any other mode, a portion of a tiger’s whisker, he (the administrator) will be able to obtain with impunity the power generally attributed to a love-philtre, and the person so operated upon, i.e., who has swallowed the whisker, will be utterly unable to prevent or punish the offender. It is well known that the natives of India are prone to intrigue, and they never lose an opportunity (either by fair means or foul) to possess themselves of these whiskers, which, when once obtained, they keep carefully by them till some beauteous dame finds favour in their sight. Then comes the time to show off their skill in administering the whisker. The whiskers of leopards are also sought after, but are not supposed to be so infallible as the tiger’s.

The claws of a tiger are simply looked upon as a charm, and are generally worked up in silver or gold, and worn round the neck to keep off an evil eye. Jungle Hunter.

The superstitions regarding tigers, as about other things, vary in many parts. At some places the whiskers are instantly burnt off, to prevent the tiger’s ghost haunting the village near which it has been killed.—C. B.

The natives have a superstitious belief, that unless the whiskers of a tiger are singed off immediately after he is killed, they will be haunted by his ghost. So says Col. Campbell, of Skipness, in his “Sporting Journals,” now passing through the press. Col. Eamsay’s tiger appears to be a fine beast; I have only once heard of a larger animal. Lieut. Eice mentions that the largest he ever killed or saw measured 12 ft. 7J in. from nose to tail.—D. D. When the shikaries bring their tiger-spoil before the “collector of the zillah ” in which the beasts of rapine are destroyed, they receive by custom 100 sicca rupees for the same, whilst the tusks and talons are abstracted from the heads and feet of the beasts, and consigned to capacious chests in the collectors’ cutcherry (treasury). In those chests, at Midnapore, some bushels of the above dental relics have been deposited from time to time, as they have been brought in to the collectors by the hunters. d. a. The natives believe the tiger’s whiskers poisonous in another way not mentioned in any of the answers given. It is this: a portion put into the chilluw a man is smoking will prove fatal to him. The claws, I have been told, when hung round a child’s neck keep it from starting in its sleep. A chief in Scinde, who brought twenty armed followers to beat for tigers, condescended to walk off with my share of the fat, which I intended to keep for a friend. Natives have been known to follow an officer from Kurrachee up the northern frontiers of Scinde, in hopes of getting some tiger’s fat. It is considered a cure for rheumatism, and when rubbed in is said to cause an eruption of the skin. The tongue of the hyaena is also prized by the natives of India. They believe it possesses the power of dissolving fish-bones that

stick in the throat, and also that the saliva of the hyaena melts bones. George Montgomery (14th Regiment, Ahmednugger, March 26).

It will scarcely be believed, but there are superstitions almost equivalent to those prevalent in India still existing in this great metropolis, for an application was made not long since to my friend Mr. Bartlett, for some hair off the back of a lion, which a woman asked for in order to give to a child, to drive away fits. Again, it will hardly be credited, but still it is a fact, that in 1862 a book* was published in London advising the administration in consumption of the actual copros (or dung) of various snakes, that of the boa-constrictor and the “warning lizard ” of the Nile being thought particularly efficacious. Medicinal virtues are also supposed by the author of this book to be present in the excreta of the

African cobra, the Indian rat-snake, the black Australian viper, the American water-viper, the Australian stump-tail lizard, the common chameleon, the Indian and box-tortoise. Surely we are returned to the days when physicians prepared their drugs according to the receipts in Pomet’s “ History of Drugs,” 1712. The only person who benefited by the new kind of medicine of 1862 was probably the keeper of the reptile house at the Zoological Gardens, the “ excreta ” being his perquisite.

“ An Enquiry into the Medicinal Value of the Excreta of Reptiles.” Longmans & Co. 1862.

The idea of a hyaena’s tongue being a solvent for bones, is evidently founded on the fact that the hyaena has amazing power of cracking the bones of animals with his tremendous teeth—an important bit of evidence as to the condition of England when hyaenas lived in the caves of Yorkshire, Cotswold Hills, Devonshire, &c.* The hyaena, too, has also the power of di-gesting the bones after they have been swallowed, as the examination of the album grcecum, found in the dens of captive hyaenas, will amply prove; or, as the late Phil Duncan of New College wrote, when describing my father’s discoveries of bones at Kirkdale Cave of those of the “ last British Hyaena ”

Potent his jaw to crack his bony rapine; Potent his stomach as a pot of Papin.

COLLAR-BONES OF THE TIGER.

By the kindness of a reader of “ The Field,” I received four little bones, described as the “floating bones” from the tiger’s shoulders; my correspondent stated they were sent to him some years ago by an Officer of the Civil Service. The largest were taken from a very fine tiger. There can be no doubt whatever that these are the undeveloped clavicles or collar-bones of the animal, to

See Dean Buckland’s “ Reliquiae Diluvianse.”

which an allusion, as “ floating bones,” was made by Capt. Montgomery, in his interesting letter from India on the subject of tigers. The largest of these clavicles is but two and a quarter inches, and not quite half an inch in the distal extremity, which tapers almost to a point. I sent these little bones to the Royal College of

Surgeons for comparison with the preparations in the museum, and the following was the answer received

Both the lion and tiger have the “ clavicular bone,” as so called by Professor Owen in the catalogues, and there is no doubt about the two bones you showed me being clavicular bones. The specimens of lion and tiger in the museum here have the bone on one side only; no doubt the other one was overlooked in the preparing them for maceration.

The bones are about as large, and somewhat of the shape, of the merrythought ofa fowl. This merrythought of the bird is indeed nothing but a true clavicle. We find the clavicle fully developed in our species, where

free use of the fore limbs is absolutely necessary for the existence of the creature. The tiger is an animal that uses his fore arms very frequently, and, as many of my readers know, sometimes to great effect; therefore he is provided with a clavicle, but, strange to say, nature has not developed it, except in a very minute degree. The tiger, I believe, is unable to climb trees, and I cannot help thinking that one of the reasons he cannot do this is that his clavicle is so exceedingly small

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