not. Montana has made a
beginning with two preserves,--Snow Creek and the Pryor Mountains,--but
beside the splendid series of Kashmir they are not worthy of serious
mention.

And then following closely in the wake of that document came a lengthy
article in the "Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London," by
E.C. Stebbing, in which a correspondent of the Indian _Field_ clearly
sets forth the fact that the big game of the Himalayas now is menaced by
a peril new to our consideration, but of a most deadly character. Hear
him:

"In this inventory (of game destroyers in India), the Gurkha soldier
does not find a place, for he belongs to a class which he amply fills by
himself with his small but very important personality. He deserves
separate notice. From the banks of the Sarda on the frontier of Nepal,
to the banks of the Indus, the battalions of these gallant little men
are scattered in cantonments all along the outer spurs of the Himalayan
range. In seven or eight of these locations there are at least 14,000 of
these disciplined warriors, who, in the absence of opportunities for
spilling human blood legitimately, are given a free hand for
slaughtering wild animals, along five-hundred miles of the best hunting
grounds of Upper India."

Now, since those facts must be true as reported, do they not in
themselves constitute a severe arraignment of the Indian government? Why
should that state of game slaughter endure, when a single executive
order to the C.O. of each post would effectually stop it?

In the making of game preserves, or "sanctuaries" as they are called out
there, the Government of India has shown rare and commendable diligence.
The total number is too great for enumeration here. The native state of
Mysore has seven, and the Nilgiri Hills have sanctuaries aggregating
about 100,000 acres in area. In the Wynaad Forest, my old
hunting-grounds at Mudumallay have been closed to bison shooting,
because of the alarming decrease of bison (gaur) through shooting and
disease. The Kundah Forest Reserve has been made a partial game
preserve, but the door might as well have been left wide open as so
widely ajar.

In eastern Bengal and Assam, several game preserves have been created.
On the whole, by the diligence and thoroughness with which sanctuaries,
as they are termed, have been created quite generally throughout India,
it is quite evident that the government and the sportsmen of India have
become thoroughly al