INTRODUCTION 



"EHA " 



Edward Hamilton Aitken, the author of the 

 following sketches, was well known to the present 

 generation of Anglo-Indians, by his pen-name of 

 Eha, as an accurate and amusing writer on natural 

 history subjects. Those who were privileged to 

 know him intimately, as the writer of this sketch did, 

 knew him as a Christian gentleman of singular 

 simplicity and modesty and great charm of manner. 

 He was always ready to help a fellow-worker in 

 science or philanthropy if it were possible for him 

 to do so. Thus, indeed, began the friendship between 

 us. For when plague first invaded India in 1896, 

 the writer was one of those sent to Bombay to 

 work at the problem of its causation from the 

 scientific side, thereby becoming interested in the 

 life history of rats, which were shown to be inti- 

 mately connected with the spread of this dire 

 disease. Having for years admired Eha's books 

 on natural history — The Tribes on my Frontier, 

 An Indian Naturalist's Foreign Policy, and The 



