Indian Gamc-Birds and Wildfowl 



are still as fond of making pets and gladiators of 

 quails as were the Greeks of old. 



Bustards there are, too — the great Indian bus- 

 tard, exceeding two yards in expanse and two stone 

 in weight ; the desert-haunting houbara, a favourite 

 quarry with falconers, and the delicious lloricans, 

 the smaller kind, or likh, adorned with long ear- 

 plumes such as are only found elsewhere among 

 certain birds of paradise. With such a large and 

 varied list India ought to be the best country in 

 the world for small-game shooting ; that it is not 

 so is to be attributed to the fact that there is 

 no properly organised and sufficient preservation, 

 and that the country fairly swarms with ground 

 vermin, from the leopard and jackal to the mon- 

 goose and cobra, so that it is a wonder how any 

 game-bird survives at all. 



Happily, however, the subject of game preser- 

 vation is now being taken in hand more seriously, 

 and one most destructive class of human poachers, 

 the plume-hunters, who used to destroy monauls 

 and tragopans by the thousand for the sake of 

 their skins, have been effectually dealt with by 

 Lord Curzon's admirable enactment prohibiting 

 the export of such goods from the country. 

 Legislative interference, however, is still much 

 needed to protect the water-fowl, which, from 

 the biggest ducks to the smallest sandpipers, 



are yearly captured by hundreds by various 



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