32 SPORT IN BENGAL. 



charged for a license costing only tenpence per annum, 

 which no one would grudge to pay who could afford to buy a 

 gun or a matchlock for thirty or forty shillings. As a 

 general rule the cultivator, on whose behalf the Arms Act is 

 condemned, very rarely has recourse to firearms for the pro- 

 tection of his crops, they being used mostly by the well-to- 

 do householder, or the village loafer, against birds of all kinds 

 in and out of season, and by professional " Shikarees " for 

 shooting deer and pigs. The result is the gradual disappear- 

 ance of birds, hares, deer and wild hog, while tigers remain 

 much the same in most places where the jungles have not 

 been cut down, and panthers have undoubtedly increased 

 everywhere, the village sportsmen and gunners not caring 

 to try conclusions with such customers, much preferring to 

 leave them to be dealt with by the professional hunters or 

 European sportsmen. 



The ordinary food of tigers and panthers deer and wild 

 swine being diminished, these animals are compelled, as a 

 matter of course, to prey upon the village herds and flocks, 

 and thus the gain by the harvesting of more grain is counter- 

 balanced by the loss of more sheep, goats and cattle. It is 

 further remarked, that under these conditions the man-eater, 

 whether tiger or panther, more frequently than formerly 

 carries off people while going to or from the weekly market, 

 in the evening gloaming ; the herdsman from the shelter of a 

 shady bush on a hot afternoon ; or the woman while bathing 

 or fetching water at mid-day within hail of her home and 

 neighbours. So long, therefore, as the coverts remain, and the 

 grass plains are uncultivated, the destruction of deer, hog 

 and other game will rather tend to increase the losses among 

 the peasants' flocks and herds, through the depredations of 

 tigers and panthers ; and to the axe and the plough, and not 

 to the gun in the hands of villagers, will be due ultimately 

 the protection of the country from the ravages of these 

 terrible pests. 



In Bengal the favourite haunts of wild animals are wide 

 plains of tall grasses and reeds, more or less swampy, according 



