GAME PROTECTION IN INDIA 259 



Central India, Colonel Fife Cookson's Tiger Shooting in the 

 Dun and Alwar, Baker's Wild Beasts and their Ways, Pollok's 

 Sport in British Burma, Pollok and Thorn's Wild Sports oj 

 Burma and Assam, Pollok's Sporting Days in Southern India, 

 etc., and, a more recent and admirable volume, Eardley 

 Wilmot's Forest Life and Sport in India. One and all of these 

 stirring reminiscences convey in language which there is no 

 mistaking that up to a score or so of years ago India was a 

 paradise par excellence for the sportsman. What then, 

 when we contrast present conditions, do these fascinating 

 volumes teach us — inevitably tell us ? That the game 

 of India is on the decrease, on a very rapid decrease, and 

 that the good old days of yore are gone never to return. 



That the modern rifle has to some extent been responsible 

 for the present state of affairs is beyond cavil — its accuracy 

 and also the cheapness with which the more roughly made 

 forms can be purchased. The native shikari has now to some 

 extent replaced the old blunderbuss of his father's days by a 

 breech-loader, and when possessed of such kills an infinitely 

 larger head of game in the year as a consequence. The 

 weapon itself costs 45 rupees only, but it is doubtless the 

 price of cartridges which mercifully prevents the breech- 

 loader from coming into as general use amongst this class of 

 men as would otherwise be the case. 



But the startling decrease which the head of game 

 existing in India has undergone during the last two or three 

 decades cannot be attributed only to the improved accuracy 

 of the weapons with which the modern-day sportsman is 

 armed. The opening out of the country and the consequent 

 restriction of the animals is also largely responsible. It is 

 now some years since the buffalo disappeared from the United 

 Provinces forests — about the nineties of last century or there- 

 abouts. Bengal and Assam, e.g. , the Western Duars, no longer 

 contain sufficiently extensive jungles to harbour rhinoceros 

 and buffalo. The great increase in the number of sportsmen 

 who visit the jungles annually on sport intent, an increase 

 brought about chiefly by the greatly improved communi- 

 cations owing to railway and road development, has also 

 been a great factor in the case, and motor-cars will intensify it. 

 The two other important factors are the native armed shikari 

 and that curse of the country the unarmed poacher. It is 

 probable that there are — because the trade is now a more 

 paying one — an infinitely greater number of competent 



