198 



NA TURE 



[January i, 1903 



THE FORESTS OF UPPER INDIA. 

 The Forests of Upper India and their Ink ibitants. 

 By Thomas W. Webber. Pp. xvi + 344 ; with 2 maps. 

 (London : Edward Arnold, 1902.) Price 12J. 6d. net. 



THE title of this interesting book is somewhat mis. 

 leading. In the first place, the author deals with 

 only a fraction of the forests of Upper India, namely 

 those of the districts of Kumaon (with a visit to 

 Thibet), Gorakhpur (with a dash into Nepal), Jansi, 

 Bundelkund, and the northern part of the Central 

 Provinces. In the second place, he gives far more in- 

 formation regarding the inhabitants, whether men or 

 animals, than of the forests themselves. Indeed, the in- 

 formation regarding the latter is very sketchy and not 

 up-to-date. What the author does say in this respect 

 refers to a state of things existing some thirty-five to 

 forty years ago, and we have now far more complete 

 accounts than those contained in this volume. Nor is 

 the information in this respect always very accurate. On 

 p. 38, for instance, he gives the area of the Kumaon 

 hill forests as 15,000 square miles, while the whole dis- 

 trict in which they are situated is given as 150 miles long 

 and 100 broad, which also comes to 1 5,000 square miles. 

 At p. 184, on the other hand, the area of forests surveyed 

 in Kumaon is said to amount to 1074 square miles. 

 Again, at p. 41, it is stated that the silver fir grows on 

 the northern slopes at an elevation of 12,000 feet, whereas 

 that is practically the upper limit, the tree being usually 

 found between 8000 and 12,000 feet. On p. 194, the 

 author says that Sal is found in the Mysore hills and 

 Tenasserim. This may have been believed fifty years 

 ago, but it has long since been found that the southern 

 tree is not Sal, but another Dipterocarp. Of Deodar, 

 the most important tree of the Himalayas, we hear very 

 little. 



The information given of the forests serves, as a 

 matter of fact, only as a frame, into which the author 

 places the description of his travels, shikar, or sport, 

 and enumeration of animals which he his met. This 

 account will, we feel sure, interest many readers. The 

 author despises ordinary shooting as now practised in 

 these islands, but he loved stalking interesting animals, 

 especially big game, in many of the out-of-the-way places 

 which he visited between the years 1861 and 1S71. He 

 also gives an animated account of various wild or un- 

 civilised tribes and their manners and customs. One of 

 the most interesting parts of the book is, no doubt, that 

 in which he tells us that, just inside Thibet, he came 

 across the descendants of the famous Huns, which over- 

 ran the greater part of Europe some 1500 years ago. 

 Whether his surmise is conect or not, we shall not risk 

 to say, but from the description which he gives of the 

 present-day Huns, it is clear that these must have greatly 

 degenerated since the sojourn of their ancestors in 

 Europe. 



The author's account of the animal life in the districts 

 which he visited is very full and is told in an attractive 

 manner. At the same time, we think that literary 

 license and colouring have been employed in a somewhat 

 excessive manner. It is quite wonderful to read of all 

 the different kinds and numbers of quadrupeds and birds 

 which our author has seen and, in many instances, shot. 

 no. 1 73 1, VOL. 67] 



We cannot do better than give an extract from the chapter 

 headed "The Bori Forest " (pp. 299-303) : — 



"The glory of the village was an immense banian-tree, 

 standing alone and covering half an acre of level 

 ground. . . . This great fig tree is in itself a whole 

 aviary, affording both shade and figs, and insects and 

 grubs, and safety from numerous enemies of the hawk 

 tribe. There is the golden oriole {Oriolus kundod), 

 which makes a melodious whistle very like the ring of 

 glass, short, single, and descending two octaves . . . 

 Many little squirrels . . . came skipping and cocking 

 high bottle-brush ringtails. . . . Among the thick, shiny 

 leaves there is a sparkle of canary-yellow and bright 

 scarlet ; this is the female and male minivet or cardinal 

 bird. There are many kinds of woodpeckers, which 

 tap on the stems and screech. A dark-greenish bird 

 sits in the shade — the koel. He makes the grove 

 resound with his frantic cry, ' I've lost my shirt.' . . . 

 The air is full of swifts and swallows, darting ever after 

 insects. ... At no time or place is there an interval in 

 the wheeling of long-winged kites high overhead. . . . 

 Towards evening ... a little owl says ' Piu !' from the 

 recesses of the many air-roots which hang overhead. 

 Then ... a hundred green paraquets screech all 

 together. . . . There are flocks of the common large 

 green paraquet, the smaller rose-collared tota, and many 

 kinds of plum-headed paraquets, and slaty-headed and 

 red-breasted parrots of all sizes. . . . There are notes of 

 various owls . . . the purring also of the goatsucker. 

 . . . Stag-beetles drone as they swing by, and cockchafers 

 and the cicadas in the trees keep up a creaking which 

 seems always in the air, and there is never silence." 



Who would not like to see such a banian-tree and to 

 sit under it and watch the variety of life here depicted 

 by the author ? 



Men with a more practical turn of mind would perhaps 

 fasten on another very short passage in this chapter 

 (pp. 309-310), where it is said : — 



"The complete exclusion of jungle fires, which had 

 been successfully carried out for some years previously, 

 certainly showed its effect, as fine saplings, grown from 

 seed, of teak and other sorts were plentiful through the 

 forest." 



The author dismisses the subject with these few words, 

 and yet this operation was of immense importance, as 

 the protection from fire of the Bori Forest in the 

 Central Provinces was the first thoroughly successful 

 experiment of the kind, continued over some forty years. 

 It was the beginning of a system of successful fire pro- 

 tection now carried on in all Indian provinces, a system 

 which gives protection to some 30,000 square miles of 

 the more valuable Indian forests. One of the greatest 

 achievements of the Indian Forest Department is the suc- 

 cess with which such extensive areas of valuable forests 

 are now protected from the devastation formerly wrought 

 in them by the annual forest fires. Whoever may have 

 started the idea, so much is certain, that the officer who 

 was the first to be thoroughly successful in this great 

 work is Colonel Pearson, at that time Conservator of 

 Forests in the Central Provinces. 



In the appendix, the author gives us his ideas of 

 " the scientific management of forests," and he winds up 

 by reading a lecture to the Government on the neglect 

 which forestry has met with in these islands. The author 

 draws attention to the serious consequences which are 

 likely to arise if something substantial is not done at 

 once in augmenting the wooded area of Great Britain and 



