seeds of wild plants or grain are exclusively vegetable-feeders, 
as many of them, especially when young, consume great 
numbers of grubs and other insects; again, graminivorous birds 
may and do check the spread of noxious weeds. In the plant¬ 
ing districts of Southern India there have been disastrous 
examples of the destructive agencies which may be brought 
into action by the operations of man. I need only instance 
the appearance of hosts of a boring insect,* which, about 
eighteen years ago,f threatened to destroy the whole of the 
coffee plantations, and more recently the outbreak of leaf 
disease,% which has injured to a serious extent the same 
industry. It was my duty to specially investigate the ravages 
of the former pest, and the information then acquired and 
subsequent observation not only enable me to write with con¬ 
fidence on a subject of this kind, but also induce me to regard 
with dread any signal interference with the beneficent agents 
which Nature provides to protect the fruits of the earth from 
destruction by insect and other pests.” 
It must now be noted that in the year (1881) in which the 
Madras Government made an attempt to obtain a general Act for 
the protection of wild birds, the Government of Bombay forwarded 
for the sanction of the Supreme Government a Bill which they had 
passed to enable them to protect game and fish by the establish¬ 
ment of a close season, and the imposition of penalties for breach 
of the regulations. The Bill had reference to nine species of game 
specified, and further included auy birds or fresh-water fish used 
as food which the local Government might deem it necessary to 
protect. To this proposal also the reply was a negative, “ on 
“ the grounds that the public interests involved did not appear 
“ sufficiently strong to warrant interference with the habits of 
“ the rural population, in the manner contemplated.” As a matter 
of fact, the rural population engaged in agriculture do not kill 
birds, but, on the contrary, zealously protect them, in some districts 
* The beetle Xylotrechus quadrupes. t This was written in 1886. 
+ A fungus Hcmileia vastatrix. 
