136 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. VILL. 
REVIEW. 
* Breast AND MAN In Inpta, 
Tux first thing to consider is, whether this review ought to be written 
for the Bombay Natural History Society’s Journal, or for that of the 
chum Society,—the Anthropological. It is true, indeed, that Natural 
History includes Anthropology ; but this is not a popular view of the 
subject, and, therefore, hardly applicable to a “‘ popular sketch,” By 
the way, how did Mr. John Lockwood Kipling know that his sketch 
would be “ popular,” as it certainly is, before he published it? He had 
a right to expect in Bombay and the Punjab a success d’estime and 
his surname has been a good deal before the world of late ; and, 
perhaps, that may have encouraged him, and the event and editions 
have justified him, To return to the writer’s own choice, Mr. Kipling 
and most of his public think that “ Natural History’ deals rather 
with “ Beasts” than with Men. And he has, with conscious or 
unconscious sarcasm, put his Beast first. So here goes. 
We will take in hand his discourse of beasts, and leave that on men 
mostly on one side, especially so much of the book as is composed of 
newspaper articles and ballads by another hand. Like Dante and 
Virgil “‘ We won’t discuss these, but glance at them and pass on.” 
The introductory chapter is mostly full of explanations of Indian 
character foreign to our somewhat limited view of the subject. But 
two somewhat curious limitations in our author’s are revealed at p. 18, 
where he says that “in a few generations we may hope for an Indian 
student of Natural History. At present this splendid field is left 
entirely to Huropean observers, who mostly look at nature along the 
barrel of a gun. Which is a false perspective.” The full stop at 
“gun, we may remark, is false punctuation ; but, perhaps, the 
printer’s. 
But in what world does Mr. Kipling live? Any monthin Bombay 
we could show him a room full of Indian students of Natural History, 
and as to the Europeans who “‘ look at nature along the barrel of a gun,” 
many of them have taken that view of the tiger and the panther. 
Whether their perspective was true or false, let the re-peopled villages 
* “ Beast and Man in India, a popular sketch of Indian Animals in their relations 
with the people’. By JohniLockwood Kipling, (.1.H. London, Macmillan & Co, 
