BIRDS IN THE JUNGLE 



at the cost of a great deal of useless labour. A whole 

 village sets to work to capture the monkeys in nets ; 

 then the animals are bundled into closed carts, carried 

 perhaps sixty miles away into the jungle and liberated. 

 Of course, it is sheer waste of energy. Very often in 

 a week's time the same monkeys are back in the paddy 

 fields again. 



The bird life of the jungle of Mysore is wonder- 

 fully interesting, and I longed to get some really good 

 pictures; but the difficulties were very great, and I 

 met with a number of disappointments. Vultures are 

 common, but I never succeeded in photographing 

 any of them. 



There are plenty of smaller animals, of the kind 

 which you seem to hear but never see. Once, however, 

 I did get a good view of a wild dog. He trotted across 

 the path in front of my elephant, and stood for fully 

 five seconds watching me, looking exactly like one of 

 our foxes, except for the fact that he had a black, 

 bushy tail. I used several feet of film on him, but 

 there was not time enough to get a real moving picture. 



Later in the day we reached a shooting-box 

 belonging to one of the assistant game-rangers. 

 Probably it would be difficult to imagine a more 

 lonely life than that led by these men; yet, 

 generally speaking, they seem to like it, and find ample 

 compensations for the things they miss. Perhaps 

 they are right. As a naturaUst I can enter into their 



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