INTRODUCTION x 



a safeguard against the entire spoiling of its beautiful and 

 vast forests. During the six months of the rainy season 

 the growth is so luxuriant, and the jungles so impenetrable 

 and unhealthy, that the wild animals have immunity from 

 the persecution of their great enemy, the Saxon man. The 

 natives as a rule do not take animal life ; and the paternal 

 rule of the British Government, though it offers a reward 

 for the destruction of snakes and animals dangerous to 

 life, does not encourage the wholesale slaughter of the 

 harmless creatures which the forest produces and nourishes. 

 India will, I hope, long remain a paradise for the true 

 sportsman, as its forests cannot become denuded of all 

 life and so deprived of half their beauty and interest. In 

 establishing a Forest Department and protecting the 

 timber from destruction, the Government has also extended 

 its protecting arm over the game, so that it shaU not be 

 exterminated in a ruthless and wasteful manner. Never- 

 theless, game is getting scarcer than it was. I was fortu- 

 nate in being in the country at a time — shortly after the 

 Mutiny — when game of all kinds was very plentiful, and 

 when in most places it was easy to keep the larder 

 and camp supphed with good venison or winged game ; 

 but to kill females, or slaughter poor innocent creatures 

 simply to make a bag, was not thought of. I have read 

 books on hunting big game, where the writers unblush- 

 ingly describe their exploits in shooting down multitudes 

 of innocent animals apparently for no object whatsoever. 

 Nor do they even omit to count up the wounded ones. 

 Such descriptions make one sick, and little the wiser as 

 to the nature of the country or the habits of the animals. 

 I shall not endeavour to imitate these wrongly styled 

 sportsmen. My object was to obtain the best specimen 

 of any particular kind of game, and to become acquainted 

 with its conditions of hfe from actual experience, and 



