GAMK PROTECTION IN INDIA, 25 



protect crops, some special measvires are necessary. Wherever 

 it can be proved that game is no hunger destructive, the licenses 

 should be cancelled and the weapons called in. In other cases 

 where destruction is still being done the guns must be retained. 

 Since, however, these weapons are given merely for the protection 

 of the ci'opsj they should be restricted to that purpose and be 

 rendered unfit for any other. This can be easily done by cutting 

 down the gun-bairel to 18 inches or 2 feet. 



A further point of importance in connection with the pro- 

 tection of game is to be found in the sale of ammunition. It is 

 a question for consideration whether this should not come into 

 the hands of Government and be directly regulated by it. This 

 question scarcely comes under the head of Game Sanctuaries, 

 but it is of very considerable importance in the interests of 

 Game Preservation. 



The apathy which the proper protection of the Game of the 

 countiy has met with in the past at the hands of Government is 

 almost incredible. In many parts of the coiintry there are forests 

 in blocks of very considerable area. Rules under the Forest Act 

 have been in force in these forests for years, a sixth of British 

 India being under the Act and Rules. It would have been 

 sufficient merely to have enforced these rules in the spirit as also 

 in the letter; and adequate protection would have been afforded 

 to species Which are now, owing to this apathy and neglect, 

 within a measurable space of deterioration, if not of total 

 extinction. 



Lord Ourzion, so long ago as December 1901, when replying to 

 the Bdrma Game Preservation Association at Rangoon, said he 

 was in " close sympathy " with the aims of that body. 



That he recognised the importance of the subject is shown by 

 his opening remarks, in which he said : — " Among the many 

 memoi'ials which the enterprising inhabitants of Lower Burma 

 have showered upon me, and to all of which it has not been 

 possible for me to give a Verbal reply, I have selected yours as 

 one of those to which I should." He then observed that the 

 gi-eat importance of the question of Game Preservation in India 

 is one thrtt, in his judgment, appealed not only to the sportsman 

 but ftlso to the naturalist and the friend of animal life. 



Further oil he stated that facts pointed entirely in the direction 

 of the " progressive diminution of wild life in India," and gave 

 examples in support of this belief. He then mentioned solne of 

 the " artificial and preventable" causes of this diminution, and 

 also of those which are " natural and inevitable." He admitted 

 that hithex'to the attempts made by Government to deal with 

 the question by legislation or by rules or notifications based on 

 statutes had been somewhat " fitful and lacking iti tnethod," and, 

 after mentioning some of these attempts, he said :— " The general 

 effect of these restrictions has been in the right direction, but I 

 doubt if they have been sufficiently co-ordinated, or if they have 

 gone far enough, and one of my last acts in Simla, before I had 



