INTRODUCTION 



SIR SAMUEL BAKER'S vigorous " Rifle and Hound in 

 Ceylon " serves merely to remind us, at the present day, 

 that fifty years ago Ceylon was a veritable sportsman's 

 Paradise. 



Even at that time, however, that great sportsman 

 foresaw and foretold the destruction of game which has 

 since so unmistakably taken place, not due to any 

 natural laws or the advance of cultivation, but entirely 

 to the unlimited possession and use of firearms by the 

 natives. 



True, we have Game Laws which our Government seems 

 to consider sufficient, and so they might be if they were 

 efficiently enforced ; but, as nobody apparently takes the 

 trouble to enforce them, in the low country they are almost 

 inoperative, and the native, practically unchecked, shoots 

 and slaughters all the year round. The evil is that he does 

 this not for his personal food or use, but as a matter of 

 trade, there being a ready sale for all horns, hides, and dried 

 meat in the country. 



With regard to the great destruction of deer, the Ceylon 

 Game Protection Society did its best some years ago to 

 awaken Government to the state of things, and I myself 

 worried through a resolution asking Government to pro- 

 hibit the sale of horns, hides, and meat, but allowing the 

 natives at any time to shoot game for their own consump- 

 tion, but all to no purpose, for the " powers that be " 

 would not hear of it. In their mighty wisdom they pro- 



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