LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 227 
transported to the river and floated off, and with the logs are 
now on the abovenamed railways as sleepers, or in their stores, 
I regret, as much as Mr. Brooks, the sad necessity of destroy- 
ing these grand old forests. So do I regret the sad fact that we 
“can’t keep our cake and eat it;’’ and it seems we can’t have 
railways and leave the forests undisturbed. There is satisfac- 
tion no doubt in gazing on, or wandering through, a primeval 
forest. So also there is satisfaction in starting from Calcutta 
with the knowiedge that next day you will be in the North- 
West, instead of the weeks or months of travelling which the 
journey would have taken not so very many years ago. Let 
us hope this will be some consolation to Mr. Brooks also. 
The truth of the matter about the logs and trees and forest, 
or rather the explanation of it, is, that Mr. Brooks got to the 
place just before work recommenced for the season; and he 
seems to have come to the strange conclusion that everything 
was to be left for ever just ashe sawit. I got to Hursil, 
which is three miles below Derallee, the very day he passed 
it on his return, and a week later he would probably have con- 
cluded the shouting of the men, and other noises connected 
with the work, had frightened all the birds away. He certainly 
would never have entertained the idea that any of the felled 
timber would be left to rot. 
His thinking the destruction of the forest has caused a dimi- 
nution in the number of birds, is quite as great a mistake, for 
the proportion of felled forest is very small, indeed compared 
to the whole. Birds never were very numerous, and if Mr. 
Brooks saw the place in midwinter he would not wonder at it. 
The Derallee side of the valley is quite buried in snow for two 
or three months, and most of the birds are only summer visitors. 
The only ones which have really decreased in numbers are [bido- 
rhynchus Struthersti, and a few others which breed on the sands. 
The lee of a stranded log is a convenient place for a nest, and 
when the logs are rolled away in the breeding season, which in 
most years they are, most of the nests are doubtless destroyed. 
As to Lophophorus Impeyanus, which, Mr. Brooks says, will 
soon be extinct in this part of the world, I have very little 
doubt that in May 1874, they were just as numerous at, and 
above, Derallee as they were before either he or I was born, 
The truth is, they never were, and never will be, numerous here, 
the winter being too severe for them. In the 40 years I have 
been in this part of the country, I do not think that as many 
Moonalls have been shot above Derallee, by myself, my men, the 
villagers, and visitors, altogether. Moonalls are numerous only 
south of the snowy ranges, and Derallee is due north of the first 
one. Not a dozen have in all these years been brought for sale 
to the godown below Derallee, where the price is Rs, 2-8,” 
