such, consist merely of a flap of skin stretching from the fore to the hind legs.  When at rest this flap, as it folds into the side, is not very noticeable, and the animal presents, when on the ground, or on the branch of a tree, the appearance of a very large, grey furred squirrel.  It cannot, of course, rise from the ground, but, when travelling from tree to tree, it spreads its flap, or perhaps rather sets its sail, by the agency of osseous appendages attached to the feet, but which fold up against the leg when the animal is at rest, and starts like a man on the trapeze—­descending from one point to rise again to about a similar level on the next tree, but when the flight is extended (Jerdon, in his “Mammals of India,” says he has seen one traverse in the air a distance of sixty yards) the squirrel reaches the tree very low down.  When clearing the forest these squirrels often emerged from their holes in the trees and gave me good opportunities of observing their movements, and I feel sure that I have seen them traverse distances of at least 100 yards.  One of these squirrels was brought to me when it was about half grown, and came to consider my house as its natural home.  It soon discovered a suitable retreat for the day in the shape of an empty clothes-bag hanging at the back of a door, and in this it slept all day.  It came out at dusk, and used often to sit on the back of my high backed chair as I sat at dinner, and then I gave it fruit and bread.  After dinner away it went to the jungle, and I seldom saw anything more of it till very early in the morning, when it used to enter the house by an open swing window, get on to my bed, and curl itself up at my feet.  When I rose my pet did so too and betook itself to the clothes-bag, and there spent the day, to go through the same round the following night.  This very pretty and interesting animal met with the common fate of defenceless pets, and was killed by a dog as it was making its way to the jungle one evening.

A third instance I may give as regards the way in which wild animals readily become domesticated, and eventually seem to prefer the society of man to that of their own species.  In this case my pet was a hornbill, a bird of discordant note, and with a huge beak, and a box-like crowned head.  This creature was also totally unrestrained, but showed a most decided preference for the society of man.  One day it joined some of its species which made their appearance in the jungle near my house, but soon got tired of or disgusted with them, and speedily returned to the bungalow.  It used to swallow its food like a man taking a pill, and it was surprising to observe the ease with which balls of rice of about the size of two large walnuts were dispatched.  On one occasion it flew off with my bunch of keys, but was luckily seen by my servant, who gave the alarm.  The bird threw back its head the moment it alighted on the first convenient branch, and it was only from the ring sticking in the front of its beak that it was prevented from swallowing the entire bunch.  Finding my people close upon it, the bird flew away to a piece of forest some hundreds of yards away, where it seemed to take a most aggravating pleasure in dangling my keys from the tops of the loftiest trees, and it was some time before it let them drop, which I conclude it at last did merely because it could not swallow them.