BIEDS OF liSTDIA DEWAE. 623 



riences of Colonel Rattray, in the Murree hills, and myself, at La- 

 hore, %Yhich may be taken as typical of the plains of the Punjab. 

 In the course of two years' observation Colonel Rattray found nests 

 of 104 species of birds. I did not keep a record of the two years I 

 spent at Lahore, but I think I may safely say that I saw the nests 

 of over 60 species of birds, and of these only seven are included 

 in Colonel Rattray's list, published in the Journal of the Bombay 

 Natural History Society. Nor is this all. The Himalayas have 

 what Jerdon calls a " double fauna." The birds of the eastern por- 

 tion are common to the Himalayas and to the hilly regions of Assam 

 and Burma, while those found on the western portion of the range 

 include a large number of European species, and are, to a large 

 extent, common to the Himalayas and to Tibet and Northern Asia. 

 Then, again, the Malabar Coast and the Nilgiris possess not a few 

 species of birds found nowhere else. It is, therefore, possible to divide 

 the Indian Empire into four geographical regions, each having a 

 distinctive avifauna. Such, then, are the birds that render India an 

 El Dorado for the naturalist. 



Let us now consider them from three different standpoints. 

 Firstly, from that of the bird-lover, of him who watches the feathered 

 folk chiefly, if not solely, on account of the pleasure he derives from 

 so doing. Then from the standpoint of the biologist, who studies 

 the fowls of the air, as he studies other forms of life, in the hope of 

 elucidating some of the mysteries presented by the natural universe. 

 Lastly, from the utilitarian standpoint of the economist, who con- 

 •cerns himself with birds in order to determine how they may be 

 made to serve best the interests of man. 



THE CHARM OF BIRDS. 



Mr. W. H. Hudson quotes Sir Edward Grey as saying that the 

 love and appreciation and study of birds is something fresher and 

 brighter than the second-hand interests and conventional amuse- 

 ments in which so many in these days try to live; that the pleasure 

 of seeing and listening to them is purer and more lasting than any 

 pleasures of excitement, and, in the long run, " happier than personal 

 success." 



Only those who have come under the sway of the charm of birds 

 can appreciate to what an extent the joie de vivre is enhanced by an 

 acquaintance with them. Interest in the feathered hosts, when once 

 aroused in a man, will never flag or wane. Rather will it grow in 

 intensity with advancing years, so that many a man as — 



Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day, 



has been able to say, with the late Mr. R. Bosworth Smith, " birds 

 have been to me the solace, the recreation, the passion of a lifetime." 



