March 2, 191 1] 



NATURE 



13 



FOREST LIFE IN INDIA.' 



T N these pleasant pages the author looks back cheer- 

 ■»■ fully upon some of the events of thirty-five years 

 in the Indian Forest Service, from the less respon- 

 sible stage of assistant-conservator of forests, seeking 

 the bubble reputation even in the tiger's mouth, to 

 the more severe and formal stage of inspector-general, 

 full of wise saws and modern instances. Of the 

 gloom and monotony of existence far from the busy 



Fig. I. — The Baspa Valley. From " Forest Life and Sport in India. 



hum of men, and of the great and manifold dangers 

 that surround life in a tropical jungle remote from 

 all medical resources, he prefers, like a good Briton, 

 to say nothing, though he must know all about them, 

 and could no doubt make moan if he chose. 



In the chapters covering the author's earlier terms 

 of service as a junior executive officer in Oudh, and 

 on the Nepal frontier, the moving incidents of sport 

 predominate, and we are told much — though nothing. 



Forest Life and Sport in India." By S. Eardley-Wilmot, CLE. 

 IPp. xi-f 324. (London : Edward Arnold, 1910.) Price 12s. 6d. 



perhaps, very new— of the ways of the beasts that 

 perish by the rifle. There are several accounts of the 

 author's own experience of man-eating tigers; some, 

 of course, tales of woe and death, but one— telling 

 how an Indian peasant woman, with nothing but a 

 sickle in her hand, attacked and beat off a man-eater 

 that had seized her husband— might, if the heroine's 

 name were known, be immortalised in the archives of 

 the State. 



With the advent of greater official responsibility the 

 full tide of sport begins to ebb, 

 and \\e are introduced to those 

 questions of organisation and 

 policy, which are the chief care of 

 an administrative oflficer, and re- 

 veal the more serious purpose of 

 the book. All these questions are 

 treated with skill and tact. Among 

 other^ things, we learn how far- 

 reaching reforms of various kinds 

 were effected, sometimes in the 

 face of official indifference and 

 misunderstanding ; how native 

 opposition to any interference 

 with misconceived and misdirected 

 "natural rights" was gradually 

 overcome, so that suspicious vil- 

 lagers and destructive wild-men 

 were at length converted into the 

 ready tools of the forest conserva- 

 tor; and how institutions for the 

 higher training of the forester are 

 becoming engrafted on the educa- 

 tional system of the country. In 

 short, we get from this excellent 

 book not only a good idea of a 

 forest ofTicer's work in every 

 grade, and of the main line of 

 development of the Indian Forest 

 Department, but also an insight 

 into the many ways, direct and 

 indirect, whereby well-managed 

 forests contribute to a country's 

 welfare. 



This being one of the chief 

 lessons of the book, we think that 

 the author errs when, in discuss- 

 ing the relation of forest to 

 ground-water, and so to agricul- 

 ture, he speaks of forestry and 

 agriculture as simple industries in 

 comparison with the ''more im- 

 portant manufactures that add to 

 the national wealth." Surely at a 

 time like the present, when Eng- 

 land has grown all one-sided by 

 neglect of agriculture, and whole 

 masses of Englishmen deafened 

 by machinery and blinded by 

 smoke are in danger of losing 

 their bearings, it were pity if a 

 ;nan who has lived half a life- 

 time in iho precincts of Demeter 

 did not boldly assert that as long 

 as workmen require bread and l)utter niid meat, so 

 long must their most important arc<Miiplishnienls in 

 the way of manufacture and all their additions to the 

 national wealth wait ujjon the sturdy yeoman, who, 

 like another Atlas, bears the civilised world upon his 

 shoulders. 



As a good Anglo-Indian of the olden style, the 

 author thinks of hig native subordinates and native 

 servants as fellow-men, and always speaks kindly of 

 them, and he regards red-tape with a noble aversion. 

 On the other hand, he probably overrates the value of 



NO. 2157, VOL. 86] 



