GAME-BIRDS. 37 



adventure. What to an old Indian would have appeared 

 madness in the first instance, and uninteresting in the. 

 second, to me was the height of enjoyment; and, although 

 I persisted in the same course during a three years' residence 

 in the most unhealthy part of India, and between the ages 

 of seventeen and twenty, I never suffered from cholera or 

 any of the fevers peculiar to the country ; and, in fact, never 

 had a day's illness, with the exception of a few bilious 

 attacks, brought on as much by over-indulgence in the good 

 things of this life as from any other cause. 



My expeditions were generally solitary, as I could find 

 very few companions, even amongst the old or young hands, 

 who felt disposed to encounter the formidable dangers of a 

 tropical sun for the sake of shooting a few partridges, hares, 

 or other game, and who did not prefer the far more enervating 

 recreation of sipping sherbet, or perhaps brandy pawnee, 

 smoking their hookahs, ensconced in their fauteuils, and 

 fanned or punkha'd by their servants. 



I usually hired a few coolies to act as beaters, from the 

 nearest village, and if I could engage the services of a 

 " Shikaree" or native sportsman, who was likely to indicate 

 the whereabouts of any game, I had all the better chance of 

 success. The different descriptions of game birds to be met 

 with in the country I was now traversing but depending of 

 course in a great measure on the nature of the ground were 

 wild pea-fowl, found in jungle near grain fields, nullahs, and 

 ravines full of thick scrub or bush, and in the forests ; that 

 rare and most delicious of Indian dry game, the " florikan," 

 partridges of three sorts, the black, grey, and painted, 

 several descriptions of quail, rock-pigeon of rather a lighter 

 brown, and smaller, but feathered in a similar way, and' 

 resembling the grouse; near tanks and paddy-fields wild- 

 fowl of all descriptions, many unknown in Europe, besides 

 the several varieties of snipes. I am aware that since the 



