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 conclu