PROTECTION OF WILD BIRDS IN INDIA. 1107 



the authorities have taken up the question of the advisability of a general 

 Game Law for the protection of game in India, and this is at present 

 under consideration. The proposed bill is of a very simple nature, and 

 affords adequate protection to those wild birds and animals which are 

 threatened with extermination. It defines game, and takes power for 

 Local Governments to declare a close time during which it will be unlaw- 

 ful to capture, kill or deal in any specified kind of game or the plumage 

 of any specified bird. The proposed measure, moreover, provides a general 

 exception in favour of the capture or killing of game in self-defence or in 

 protection of crops, and gives power to the Local Governments to apply 

 its provisions to birds other than certain specified ones. Fish have been 

 excluded from the scope of the proposed bill, as their case has been 

 suitably provided for by rules under the Indian Fisheries Act. 



The replies to (hi) and (iv), in respect of exportation and destruction, 

 disclosed not only a serious, but a most disastrous, state of affairs. From 

 all parts of the country came the same cries of destruction and diminu- 

 tion, which amounted to virtual extermination. Of Impeyan and Argus 

 pheasants throughout the Himalayas, of Peacocks and Black Partridges from 

 Bombay, of Egrets from Sind and Burma, and of a host of others, including 

 Jungle-cocks, Paddy-birds, Kingfishers, Jays, and Orioles throughout India 

 generally. So lucrative was the trade that single districts, such as 

 Lucknowin the United Provinces, and Amritsar in the Punjab, contributed 

 between them nearly 16,000 lbs. of plumage annually. Taking as an 

 average 30 skins to the pound, the figures indicated the destruction of 

 nearly five hundred thousand birds in a single year from two districts 

 alone ! From Bombay it was reported that a single Railway Station to the 

 north of Sind had exported within a few months 30,000 skins of Black 

 Partridges, and that over many square miles in the Pohri Division these 

 birds had, within two seasons, been absolutely exterminated by a single 

 party of professional trappers. Various other reports showed that birds 

 were netted and trapped, not by thousands, but by millions, without any 

 regard to season or sex. The hen on her eggs, or with chicks at her feet, 

 were all fair spoil to these unscrupulous hunters. A Postal Official, who 

 was stationed for many years at Dharmsala, gives an interesting account 

 of these operations. " Monal and Argus pheasants," he remarks, " are 

 snared in large numbers by professional trappers in the Kashmir and 

 Chamba Native States, and also in the hills near Kulu, Dalhousie, Dharm- 

 sala, Palampur, etc. Snares are set in localities which are not frequented 

 by sportsmen and others, and female birds and animals are destroyed 

 wholesale. I have personally seen scores of young Monals and female 

 pheasants entangled in the snares. The intention of the snares is, 

 of course, to entrap male Monal and Argus Pheasants, but the system is 

 such that every living thing that comes into the traps is destroyed. A 



