262 DIARY OF A SPORTSMAN NATURALIST 



tithe of the practices in force throughout the country have 

 been mentioned, the poacher must be put down if game 

 animals are to be afforded adequate protection. 



It may be admitted, so far as the sportsman is concerned, 

 that the steps taken to protect game have considerably 

 improved the position. Local Governments throughout 

 the country have revised their Game Rules, and in some 

 cases have ordered the formation of Game Sanctuaries in 

 addition to limiting the number of head of game to be shot 

 in a district or block of forest to a definite number per year. 

 Further, in certain provinces sportsmen are only allowed 

 to kill individually a certain head of each different species 

 of animal, thus eliminating the worst feature of the old- 

 time sportsmen — the butcher, whose boast was not the 

 size of the trophies he obtained so much as the number of 

 animals he had killed. For the departures thus made 

 throughout the country I think a due meed of credit should 

 be accorded to the Nilgiri Game Association. Inaugurated 

 about 1885, this Association has now for years not only 

 protected the game of the Plateau which the sportsmen and 

 the Todas between them were surely exterminating, but has 

 enabled an increase to be maintained and recorded. The 

 annual reports of the Association point to a satisfactory 

 increase in the head of ibex or saddlebacks {Hemitragus 

 hylocrius) and the sambhar {Cervus unicolor). For some 

 years past the number of such to be shot by each sportsman 

 has been regulated under the authority of the Association, 

 directly supported by Government. The departure thus 

 initiated in the distant Southern Plateau was followed in 

 the far North when the game of Kashmir was threatened 

 with extinction owing to the annually recurring large 

 influx of sportsmen who visited the Fair Vale. Game 

 Protection in Kashmir now forms a separate Department 

 of the State, and one which has fully achieved under its 

 able head the objects anticipated from its inauguration. 

 The late enlightened ruler of Chamba State also took up 

 the question, and prohibited all shooting except on passes 

 issued on his own authority. 



Whilst such laudable commencements were thus made to 

 preserve the game of areas which, owing to their peculiarly 

 favourable climatic conditions for the European sportsman, 

 were threatened with extinction, the Local Governments 

 in India for long remained apathetic in the matter. Game 



