Country notebook:m.krishnan

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

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COUNTRY NOTEBOOK: M. Krishnan : The Giant Squirrel : The Sunday Statesman : 26 November :2017
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THE GIANT SQUIRREL

" WHAT does the word "giant" suggest to you ? The largest size of toothpaste? Something outsize and ultimate in sheer bulk and perhaps also something ogrish? Well, the Giant Squirrel is nothing like that though it is so much larger than the familiar little striped squirrel. It is a most attractive creature, graceful and dainty in spite of its size and superbly coloured in the richest chestnut, black and cream-in fact though not the largest of our squirrels (the large Brown Flying Squirrel is a shade larger) it is the handsomest of all squirrels.

It is a pleasure to watch its movement in treetops. It flows along in swift grace and it is capable of covering 20 ft. in a leap from one tree to another. Some time ago I watched a Langur and a Giant Squirrel racing along the treetops in company apparently just for the heck of it, and the monkey for all its superior size and frenzied energy was only a little faster.

The bests and territorial claims of these squirrels have always interested me, and I was able to observe them over several days last summer - they were going about in pairs then but had no young with them. After about a few days I was able to tell the three pairs in the area I was observing from one another and though their territories did overlap to some extent and though they often wandered furlongs away in search of leaf-buds and fruit in the evenings they were always "at home" and as night fell, retired to chosen nests high up.

Midday siesta

There were several of these football-like nests in the territory of each pair. During the day the pair was not always together and sometimes went to different nests for a siesta more often, however, they sought leaf-shade at noon lying perfectly relaxed along a branch with a thick canopy of foliage overhead the broad , dorsiventrally flattened body hugging the curve of the branch and the legs dangling idly on either side and the tail pendent. They were often utterly immobile in this posture for upwards of an hour but not sound asleep.

When feeding they often adopt a stance that leaves both pairs of limbs free balanced not along the thick limb of a tree but right across some twig just stout enough to carry their weight, perched on the twig on their belly with the head and forelimbs dangling on one side, balanced by the pendent hind limbs and tail on the other side. This posture however, is not sustained for a long time and is purely a feeding attitude that leaves the hands free to hold or clutch the young leaves or fruit they are feeding on.

Incidentally, these squirrels can flatten out their bodies to some extent and the breadth of their flattened bodies and long, heavily-haired tails help not only in their leaps from tree to tree, but also when they slip occasionally and fall to the ground from a height breaking the momentum of the fall. All wild Giant Squirrels unless in poor health, have fluffy tails well covered with hair, so different from many tails of zoo specimens.

Docked in battle

Once, years ago I saw a Giant Squirrel that had only a stump of tail apparently having escaped from the enemy like Tam O 'Shanter's mare with the mere loss of appendage. I watched it for a long time and though it was in company of another squirrel with a luxuriant tail it did not seem greatly handicapped by the loss of its balancer.

What enemies do these forest-living squirrels have? They are highly arboreal and though quite at home on the forest floor seldom descend to the ground when the termites swarm though, they come down to catch the insects close to the ground. We have few diurnal hunters that can chase and capture these nimble creatures in the treetops to which they prudently keep But being strictly diurnal the Giant Squirrel is very vulnerable at night and may be previous occasionally take them from their rests, asaMalaisar once assured me they do.

The greater owls in particular the Eagle-Owls, do hunt them at night and even by day they are not safe from the larger birds of prey. I once saw a Crested Hawk-eagle carrying a Giant Squirrel in its talons.

Man seems to be their chief enemy. All forest tribes hunt this squirrel in many ways most of them cruel and are usually so furtive in their hunting that few get to know about their love of giant squirrel flesh. In most places these squirrels are extraordinarily shy of man and no wonder, it is a real pity, for if left in peace and judiciously encouraged, they soon lose their fear of humanity and become almost semi-tame, and in our sanctuaries few animals can be more charmingly attractive to the visitor than these beautiful, confiding squirrels."

- M. Krishnan

This was published on 14 November 1966

# A photograph of Giant Squirrel has not been reproduced here.

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

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COUNTRY NOTEBOOK: M. Krishnan: There was a gorging Jack...The Sunday Statesman :03 December 2017
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JACKAL

"AT last I reached the banyan I had spotted from half a mile away, and lay down gratefully in its shed. The heat had dried up everything in the neighbourhood the dusty earth, the withered shrubs, and even the grass.

There was a small pool, almost only a puddle, in the deep beyond the tree, and for a moment I felt tempted, but all the notions of hygiene inculcated in one over the years barred me. The water was not merely muddy, but also very dirty, and the sides of the pool bore the hoof-marks of many cattle I looked the other way, and noticed that there was a wind on the horizon raising the dusty - underneath the tree the air was stagnant.

When I turned slowly to the pool again, a less hygienically- educated drinker was slaking its thirst in it. A Jackal was standing knee- deep in the thick water, cooling its hot, tired legs,and drinking so daintily that I could not hear the sound of its lapping, though I was only ten yards away.


I lowered my head and lay very still watching the Jackal. When it had drunk its fill it stepped daintily on to the further side of the pool, and selecting the patch offered by a drier-up lantana, lay down in it. It circled around a few times, chasing its tail, and then lay down - I believe no animal of the dog tribe bothers to go through this ritual unless it feels like a good sleep.


It was compact in its repose, well covered by that little shade, lean jaws on out- stretched paws, tail hugging a flank and almost at once it dropped off to sleep. After a while it slowly stretched itself, turned over a little on one side, and was more relaxed and limp.

Moving slowly and very softly (silence can be achieved if one takes care and goes really slow) I crept up on the sleeper till I was right over it - I could have reached down and grabbed its throat before its swift responses could have saved it, but of course I had no such urge. I noticed the fleas on its harsh, grizzled coat, and saw the fulvous hair on its muzzle had turned partially white, evidently this was a very old jackal. The pads of the feet were deeply rutted, and on the left forepaw two toes were missing and there was a deep, healed wound suggesting a misadventure with a steel trap.

As I stood watching, the Jackal's body went to a sort of convulsion the legs scrabbled in a rowing movement, the muzzle was pushed forward and the mouth partly opened, and an eager whimper pulsated the throat - no one who knows the dogs could mistake what was happening, the Jackal was dreaming and perhaps hunting in its dream.

When the sleeper was quiet and relaxed again, I went back to my banyan. It occurred to me that if I climbed to a fork 5 ft up I could see the Jackal in comfort, with little chance of its seeing me the noise of my climb roused it at once. It sprang to its feet and looked up unerringly at me - then its jaws dropped down, wide agape with the tongue out, and wrinkle creasing the angles of the jaws below the cheeks. I believe this expression does not indicate amusement in animals, but uncertainly and surprise and also an anxious desire, but I could not help thinking how comic the sight of a awkward man scrambling up a tree must have seemed to any watcher. It left unhurriedly, gliding over the scrub at an effortless, ambling pace and I descended from the banyan and went back to the village."

- M. Krishnan

This was published on 12 December.

#The photograph of the Jackal on move with the tongue out has not been reproduced here.

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

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COUNTRY NOTEBOOK : M. Krishnan : The Inner elephant : The Sunday Statesman : 21 January 2018
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THE INNER ELEPHANT

"AN adult Elephant, it is estimated, eats from 55 lbs to 600 lbs of green fodder daily. The estimate is based on experiments conducted by Sanderson and others on well-fed tamed elephants, and while it is generally unsound equating the behaviour of captive elephants with others of their kind living free, this is the only basis we have for assessing the quantity of green fodder consumed by a wild elephant in a day.

That apart, actual observation of wild elephant shows that much of the waking life of the great beast is spent in feeding. It should be realised that the elephant do not graze or browse as most ruminants do, quickly eating up what they get, but are deliberate and choosy in their feeding. Grass is plucked out in a bundle,dusted against the knee to free if from adherent earth,and then placed crosswise in the mouth with the roots and lower stalks, and the leaf tips projecting from either side of the jaws; the roots and basal culms, or the roots alone and the blades,are then severed and rejected at one bite, depending on whether the grass is fresh or not and whether the culms are juicy; the mouthful is then masticated and swallowed,and then another clump of grass investigated and pulled out.

Tall grass of many kinds and tree foliage are the bulkiest fodder that elephants eat,but even when feeding on these they take a long time picking and choosing,dusting and rejecting,and then finally chewing up what they wish to eat. moreover,they like variety in their diet and will often search long and patiently for some titbit that they specially fancy. I have seen a big wild tusker spend well over an hour in plucking the tiny,pink heads of the flowers from a patch of Mimosa pudica, and carefully conveying them to his mouth.

It is usually said that wild elephants are very wasteful in their feeding and trample down more than they eat. This is not true. This mistaken belief arises from the behaviour of wild elephants then raiding crops or when feeding near human habitations, when they fear intrusion from men. They dislike,with excellent justification,all the things that represent human intrusions into their old homes,and will pull down huts and posts erected by men. And when feeding in an area where they apprehend disturbance and harassment by men they are very noisy and wasteful.

In the deeper jungles, as I know from repeated careful observation, they are extremely tidy and economical in their feeding,and do not trample down the vegetation indiscriminately-in fact, except that I had watched a large herd for days in a certain locality, I could not have believed that so many elephants had fed there-their trails, suggested half-a-dozen beasts and not over 40, because they had trodden in one anothers' footsteps.

It is a well-known fact that no jungle area,however small, has ever perished in our country by elephants or other large wild animals destroying or consuming the vegetation: it is no less well known that entire forests, several square miles in area,have disappeared and been converted into barren ground within two or three years by human depredation.

To give some idea of the wide variety of the natural diet of elephants I provide a list which is, I repeat, only indicative and not comprehensive.This takes no note of what tame elephants eat(I know one that has a passion for chewing gum!),and of cultivated crops like sugar cane and millets.

Bamboo is much eaten, and elephants in company often pull down an entire clump to get at the less woody culms; however,no great damage is done thereby, as the aerial shoots come up again from the rhizomes. Tall grasses of several kinds, pandanus, the dwarf date palm (phoenix humilis), and some plants of the arrowroot and ginger families that cover the forest floor in moist localities, are all part of the regular fodder of elephants. The succulent shrub, Ardisia solanacea provides them with water when the summer is dry-it grows in brakes by forest streams.

A number of shrubs,such as Helicteres isora and Hibiscus lampas serve to vary the fodder,and among the trees whose foliage they specially like are species of Albizzia, Zizyphus trinervia,and Grewia tiliaefolia-Diospyros melanoxylon foliage when tender is greatly fancied,and in elephant jungles one often sees young trees of this species pollarded by the beasts making a clean sweep of the crowns. The young shoots of teak and the bark of Grewia species and especially of kydia calycina, are also much relished.

Quite a few fruits, such as those of the screwpine, wild date, Careya arborea,Terminalia bellerlca, and species of Emblica are great favourites with wild elephants. Regarding the last, my experience has been that while some wild elephants like the " nelli " fruit ("amla"), some do not seen to care for it - the fruit is usually picked from the ground, when ripe and fallen, and not plucked from the "nelli" trees.

- M. Krishnan


#This was published on 3 April 1967.

@ The photograph of a herd of Elephants has not been reproduced here.