X INTRODUCTION 



In commencing to write the following recollections of 

 years spent mostly in the Forests of Upper India, 

 principally in the Himalayas and North- West and Central 

 Provinces, my object will be to record such incidents 

 as may elucidate the conditions of life in the forests, 

 and to treat of the wild animals and men met with and 

 their habits, and also casually of the trees and plants that 

 grow naturally there. I do not pretend to any scientific 

 knowledge of these things, but, being a lover of Nature 

 in all its aspects, I would try and record the results of 

 constant observation made from time to time in the 

 various regions visited, which were to myself highly 

 interesting and instructive, and which I would endeavour 

 to put into intelligible form. 



Man was originally a hunting animal, and the instinct 

 certainly is not eradicated among Englishmen yet, though 

 there are some who have not a soul for sport. But to 

 many men, and women too, of our country, the wild Hfe 

 in the forest comes quite natural and has a perfect fascina- 

 tion. To kill something is said by foreigners to be the 

 daily desire of every Saxon. This is often too true ; and 

 that the big game of the world is rapidly and surely 

 becoming extinct is probably due to the persistent energy 

 of the Anglo-Saxon character in acting up to its proclivities. 

 I would not write to assist such exterminators and pot- 

 hunters, whose selfishness and cruelty cannot be sufficiently 

 reprobated. It is, alas ! too true that as no one will burn 

 an ounce less coal in England because the next generation 

 will surely run short, so the wild animals which a few 

 years back abounded in the vast forests of Africa and 

 Western America are now within measurable distance of 

 becoming extinct, the present generation caring nothing 

 for the next. 



But it is not so in India. Nature has there provided 



