478 Mr. W. Jesse on the 



is not immediately apparent^ and it is often only by tlie 

 merest accident that it is discovered. The principal offenders 

 are the lower caste Hindus, Chamars, Pasis, Ahirs, and 

 Bhatus, the INtaliomedan shikari, and the poorer classes of 

 Europeans, Eurasians, and native Christians. Numbers of 

 gun licenses are issued in India, nominally to protect the 

 crops; but no one, except the man who will not see, ever 

 supposes that a native fires off shots to scare animals : shouts 

 and yells and hand-clapping do quite as much good, and at a 

 far cheaper rate. Were the gun-barrels for crop-protection 

 reduced to fifteen or eighteen inches, we should have fewer 

 weapons slaughtering the living creatures, male, female, 

 and young without discrimination, in and out of season. It 

 is a matter for congratulation that the Government are shew- 

 ing signs of awakening to the seriousness of the situation, 

 and are desirous of taking steps before it is too late. Un- 

 fortunately, political and pseudo-sentimental reasons are often 

 allowed to stand in the way of reform. The native press has 

 only to hint that the Indian is being unfairly treated to call 

 forth a storm of indignant protest from well-meaning people 

 in England who are totally ignorant of the East and its 

 ways, and are unable to form a proper estimate of the 

 views of both parties. The European is constantly being 

 forbidden to interfere with certain species which the native 

 cherishes, and it does not seem too much to ask that he in 

 his turn should be made to refrain from destroying birds 

 and animals wholesale during the breeding-season. 



It now but remains for me to give a list of those birds 

 which Mr. Reid and I have fovmd existing in and around 

 the city of Lucknow. That the list is incomplete I do 

 not for a moment deny, but in extenuation of dcficioicies 

 I would remind those who happen to glance at these notes 

 that, not being a Government official, I have no camping 

 opportunities, and, beyond an occasional day or two of 

 shooting on the jheels or maidans, I am rarely able to stay 

 more than a few miles from my bungalow. Under these 

 circuDistances I cannot claim to have discovered the occur- 

 rence of more than some seventeen or eighteen species in 



