DISAPPEARANCE OF WILD ANIMALS 307 



almost entirely disappeared. Of their former abundance 

 we have historical proof. 



The Emperor Babur, when proceeding on his expedi- 

 tion against Bengal, passed near the town of Calpee. 

 Describing it in his memoirs, he mentions that the 

 forests around were full of elephants. He remarks 

 further, the elephants were so numerous that the 

 greater part of the domesticated elephants in India 

 were obtained from among them. These forests form 

 the eastern portion of the great forest belt. I was once 

 for a short time stationed in their neighbourhood, and 

 my recollection is that no elephants at all then existed 

 within them ; certainly none were captured. 



The Ayeen Akbari was composed more than half a 

 century later. In its account of the " soobah," or 

 province, of Agra, it is stated that elephants were very 

 plentiful in that province, and were there captured for 

 use. The forests in which the elephants were found 

 and captured must have been also a part of the great 

 belt, but one more to the westward. No elephants are 

 now captured in those forests, nor, so far as I am aware, 

 do any exist. 



But, further ; the historian Firishtah, in his narrative 

 of the events of the reign of the Emperor Akbar, 

 mentions that on one occasion the Emperor, when 

 returning from Mando to Agra, came on a herd of wild 

 elephants in the forests of Sipree. These forests are 

 in the neighbourhood of Indore, and form a still more 

 westerly portion of the belt. Colonel Briggs, in his 

 English translation of Firishtah, comments on this 

 passage. He observes that then, at the time he wrote, 



