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Otago Witness, Issue 2412, 24 May 1900, Page 58

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xhis heading- a contributor lo the Field give? the following account of a ftrayed elephant:— On November 1, 1899, I left Keny Tung with a party oi men ; our transport, was i 2 elephani=. The sirst S4- miles of. the march, v/Lieh was through the country to ihe easb ol the .Salwcen, were the most, difficult going imagiiisble, not 100 yds of level potii the w hole way. The campus vary from ToOOti 10 10001 cm height, bat are udv.aily about 3500 it or 4000 ft above sea le^el. I''io;n the Salween ie Mone Npi (Mone), which is 10 mileo ea?t ot this station, the country is imich. more level; but still there is a great quantity oi dcn;e jungle, though nox. fco thick a« that to the east oi the fcJalvveen. Ihere are three rivers between Mono Kai and Keng Tung, which' elephants,' have to swirn — viz., the salween, the .Ben OJionug, and the Nr.ia 'fern. Ihe Halween s>t Takaw, where t!;e ierry is, is aboui, 3'JOyds to 400 yds broad, secy deep and very Iwift. Elephant-* when crossing are carried down -about three-quarters of v mile at this time ot the year, and in the rains, when the river rises about 60tt, -about o:ie and a-haif rnile c . The Ben Ohonug is only about quarter of a mile broad, very slow, and shallow. The Nam Tein is about 100 yds bread, deep, and swift. Mone Nai, Irom where the elephant .strayed, is about 100 miles from Takaw, _which makes the whole distance to Keug Tung about 210 miles or so. I arlived in Mone Nai on November 25, 1899, having left the zest of the elephants and the party of men at a place called Hko-Ut, three marches away. On the evening 1 of the 25th the mahout ar.d coolie coins to me with the cheerful news " Sahib, nathi-gum gya " ("Siv, the elephant has strayed" or N "is lost"), but added that the/ would be ready to march at 6 a.m. next morning. Knowing better, I hired carts. From November 25 to the end of December the coolies spent their time in the jungle looking for the tiuant, coming in occasionally for rations, looking very sick of life and full of spear grass. Rumours of wandering elephants reached me from all quarter 0 . These probably were tbe Mong Nai Sawbwa's elephants, for he has a number for -working his teak foresis. At last news came that tho Keng Tung Gawbv/a and party, wlio were travelling down the road en route to Ceylon, had passed an elephant on the road on the other side o. the Salween. Tins news, proved to be true, for shortly afterwards a telegram arrived staling that our friend had turned up in Iveng Tung all alone. She had thus been absent -vitho-ut leave from November 25 lo the end of January. ' The elephant knew the road from the Salween to Keng Tung w.ell, having been upland down it many time£.-4^ about once every two months for 18 months or so; from the Salween to Hko-CJt she did not know it so well, and from Hko-Ut to Mone Nai not at all. It is worth noting that she was not seen till she had crossed the Salween, although the mule track is pretty well frequented, by bullock and Panthe mule caravans at this time of the year ; so probably she took a line of her own to the Salween. To people well acquainted with elephants this account may not seem to be at all wonderful, but to those who are not it is at least interesting.

Some Hauls from the Deep. — At the recent scientific conference at Munich, Professor Chun exhibited the results of the German Deep-Sea Expedition. Some of the fish found at a depth of about 10,000 ft resembled, he said, the fossil species in tiic lock of the Mesozoic era, when the earth's atmosphere was dense with carbon. These fish, in many cases, had special meaiib of collecting light. Some possessed enormous eye-s, occupying nearly the whole side of the head, and some were supplied with telescopic orguns. Others carried their light on their heads in a manner similar to that of the glowworm.

The Frigate Bird. — This bird far surpasses all others in its powers ol 'night, inasmuch as, excejit at the brpediug sear-on, it seldom visits the land, and ib never .seen to swim or rest on the watc-is. An American naturalist (Mr Lancaster), wjio spent several years in studying the habits of this and other birds, states that the frigate-bird ceui live in the air for a week ot a time, night and day, without once perching or resting. He found these birds able with ea*e to go 100 miles an hour. The albatross has followed the course of a ship for seveial clays without being known to v take any rest. The swift is another bird which is almo&t continually on the wing, and never settles on'the ground or on trees. Birds on the Wing. — There exists all grades in. the spread of wings of various birds, between the frigate-bird, with its length of wing of from 12ft to I7Jlft trom tip to tip, and the wings of the condor, which are four times the length of the body, enabling the bird to ri«e to che height of nearly 25,0001t, and the little winglet>> of the auk, which are of no use to it for flying, and those of the penguin, bnial 1 ~r btill, being nothing more than short, flattened stumps without proper feathers, and covered with fine, hair-like down, which might be taken for scales. The wings oi another group of birds — the Brevipenne.-s — are wholly unsuitable for flight, but, as a compensation, their long and robust legs permit them to run with extraordinary speed, for which reason they have been called the running birds. In the apteryx the organs of flight are hardly apparent, consisting simply of a very short slump, bearing a thick and hooked nail.

Story of an Eagle. — An extraordinary story of an eagle is contributed to the Badminton Magazine by 3_iady Middleton, v. hich shows the surprising strength of these birds. She states that some ci'gflers <w Beii^eiivich^ in

Bkye, weie at work one day gathering peats, and one couple so engaged had deposited th^ir sleeping baby on the hillside. " Suddenly," she writes, "an eagle swooped, pounced on the child, and, before the aghast- parents ' could interfere, carried it up aloft. ' J?he bird actuJrlly bore its burden over the sound between Skj-e and Raasay. and deposited itf'upon the latter island. There some inhabitants had "noticed the eagle, and .were puzled as to what she was carrying, so they hurried to the place of her descent, and found the childquit c unhurt. It was a, big' child, perhaps two years old. The fact thatf, it was a windy day, and that the bird got a 'lift' at the moment of trying to rise'with such a weighr, alone accounts for the eagle getting off with f"O heavy a prey."'