338 
Lord Walden on the late Colonel TickelVs 
grounds of illustrated English ornithological works, it is a 
relief and a pleasure to find every bird surrounded by real 
leaves, pecking at real flowers, or climbing real trees, or with 
real Indian buildings and Indian animals in the distance. 
The drawing of Milvus govinda sitting on the cornice of a town 
house, that of Hirundo javanica clinging to its nest under 
the eaves of an up-country bungalow, or that of Hirundo 
erythropygia skimming over the marsh where a sportsman 
has just dropped a Snipe, startling the black buffaloes in the 
foreground, may be cited, at random, as instances of the 
artist's art. But as if his beautiful drawings were not a suffi¬ 
cient adornment to the work, Colonel Tickell has appended 
to most of the pages descriptive of the genera small oval 
vignettes, done in Indian ink, illustrating the customs and 
ways of the people, the incidents of an Indian officer's life in 
quarters, in camp, and on the march, out shooting or out 
visiting, bits of nature in the jungle, a tiger creeping up to 
children by the river-side, a wild elephant wading down a 
shallow stream by moon-light, scene after scene recalling to 
the Anglo-Indian at home memories of his Indian sojourn. 
In some, tragic subjects are vividly depicted:—a victim of 
jealousy, the body of a woman lying on the ground hacked 
with many tulwar-cuts, an infant by the dead mother's side, 
the pompous Kutwal, surrounded by officials, making his in¬ 
vestigations ; a Meriah, a human sacrifice, the victim tied 
to a post, head hanging down, men and women tearing and 
cutting the flesh off the still living body. In other scenes 
a keen sense of humour is displayed:—an officer just ar¬ 
rived at a sporting rendezvous in the jungle, some fifteen 
miles away, and the shikarree addressing him, “Your Lord- 
ship ! cherisher of the poor! governor of the country ! 
you are my father! you are God himself! The powder is 
forgotten 
Some ninety-four of these clever sketches are scattered 
through five of the seven volumes; two hundred and sixty 
plates of birds, and seven plates containing figures of the 
* Khodawund. Ghurreeb rurwur. Moolook Malik. Ap ma bap bye. 
Ap Kboda hye. Baroot bhoolgya! 
