446 ADDENDA TO THE BIRDS OF THE 
have little hesitation in attributing the general falling off to 
the drought of 1877. The jhils, too, it must be remembered, 
have never been the same since that year. Though apparently 
as full of water as ever at the close of the monsoon, they are 
most of them dry long before the close of the cold weather, 
This used not to be, and is due to two causes: first, the great 
amount of water absorbed by their dry, parched beds on the 
recurrence of the monsoon, and, secondly, the greater amount 
of water required to irrigate the ever-increasing area of wheat 
under cultivation. The most familiar example I can think of 
is the jhil at Chinhut, just out of Lucknow. Before 1877 it 
contained water all the year round, was full of fish, had a boat 
or two on it, and was always good for a morning’s wildfowl 
shooting in the season. Now, in the hot season of 1886, it is 
as dry as the season itself, and has been so, annually, since 
1877. The change is not greater, methinks, than the falling off 
in our wildfowl. 
But if the decrease is not local, and has been observed gene- 
rally in other parts of the country, I may be attributing it to 
a wrong cause. This, other observers only can confirm or 
refute. For my part I have never even heard it whispered that 
wildfowl visit India in less numbers now than they did, say, ten 
years ago. If they do, may not their decrease be due to the 
advancing Russians? I’m not a Jingo, but I may as well have 
a shy (like my betters) at the enemies of India! 
Untoward events, it would therefore appear, have often a 
deal to do with the distribution of species, even when climatic 
and other conditions are favorable. 
The Crested Grebe, too, is another bird that has become ex- 
ceeding rare in localities where formerly it was very abundant, 
but its scarcity now is due to another cause. Slaughtered whole- 
sale and systematically for the sake of its beautiful skin, we 
now seldom see itssilvery-white breast glistening in the sun. 
Slowly, but surely, too, our beautiful White Herons and Eerets 
are sharing a similar fate. A price has been put upon their 
feathery snow-white plumes, and man must needs debase his 
manhood by pandering to the insatiable vagaries or depravities 
of fashion. The worst of it is that the plumes, which are so 
much in request, are only to be had during the breeding season, 
and whole heronies, to my knowledge, have been wantonly 
destroyed to obtain them. The total annihilation of the parents 
means, of course, a still greater catastrophe in the loss of the 
young. This is wanton cruelty in its most aggravated form, and 
if it goes on unchecked these beautiful birds will soon cease to 
adorn the landscape and the lakes and rivers, of which they are 
now such familiar adjuncts. That peculiarly Indian scene—a 
newly-irrigated paddy field, its beautiful green sward studded 
