PRESERVATION OF INDIAN LAND FAUNA 289 



will be necessary to close them to man altogether, to leave 

 them, in other words, in their primeval condition, to forbid 

 the building of roads or railways through their fastnesses, 

 to prevent the Forest Department from converting the areas 

 into well-ordered blocks of forest managed for commercial 

 purposes ; in fact to prevent in them all and every act of 

 man. In every case throughout the world such Sanctuaries 

 will require to be under supervision, but such supervision 

 should be entirely confined to a police supervision to prevent 

 poaching, collecting, and any entrance by man into the area. 



In a previous chapter I alluded to the Presidential 

 Address delivered by Dr. -P. Chalmers Mitchell, F.R.S., 

 Secretary of the Zoological Society, in London, before the 

 British Association at Dundee in 1912. 



Dr. Chalmers Mitchell was the first, I believe, to enun- 

 ciate this theory of a Sanctuary for the preservation, not 

 merely of animals whose protection from extinction was 

 considered necessary either from their sporting or economic 

 value, but of the fauna as a whole. 



He quite correctly pointed out that my paper, read before 

 the Zoological Society in November, 1911, only dealt with 

 the former aspects of the question. 



After discussing the position of Europe in respect of the 

 diminution or extinction of animals which were abundant 

 in the past the author comes to India. 



" India contains," he says, " the richest, the most varied, 

 and, from many points of view, the most interesting part of 

 the Asiatic fauna. Notwithstanding the teeming human 

 population it has supported from time immemorial, the 

 extent of its area, its dense forests and jungles, its magnifi- 

 cent series of river valleys, mountains, and hills have 

 preserved until recent times a fauna rich in individuals and 

 species." 



After pointing out that the books of sportsmen show 

 how abundant game animals were forty years ago, he 

 continues : 



" The one-horned rhinoceros has been nearly exterminated 

 in Northern India and Assam. The magnificent gaur, one 

 of the most splendid of living creatures, has been almost 

 killed off throughout the limits of its range Southern India 

 and the Malay Peninsula. Bears and wolves, wild dogs and 

 leopards are persecuted remorselessly. Deer and antelope 

 have been reduced to numbers that alarm even the most 

 u 



