e impeyan pheasant is to India--the most
coveted of all plumages. There is a great tendency to blame the native
hunter for the decrease of this and other pheasants, and from what I
have personally seen in many parts of the Himalayas there is no question
that the Garwhalese and Nepalese hill-men have wrought havoc among the
birds. But these men are by no means the sole cause. As long ago as 1879
we read that "The great demand for the brilliant skins of the moonal
that has existed for many years has led to their almost total
extermination in some parts of the hills, as the native shikaris shoot
and snare for the pot as well as for skins, and kill as many females as
males. On the other hand, though for nearly thirty years my friend Mr.
Wilson has yearly sent home from 1,000 to 1,500 skins of this species
and the tragopan, there are still in the woods whence they were obtained
as many as, if not more than, when he first entered them, simply because
he has rigidly preserved females and nests, and (as amongst English
pheasants) one cock suffices for several hens."

[Illustration: PHEASANT SNARES
Made of Yak Hair, Taken from a Shepherd in Nepal by Mr. Beebe]

Ignoring the uncertainty of the last statement, it is rather absurd to
think of a single man "preserving" females and nests in the Himalayas
from 1850 to 1880, when the British Government, despite most efficient
laws and worthy efforts is unable to protect the birds of these wild
regions to-day. The statement that after thirty to forty-five thousand
cock impeyans were shot or snared, as many or more than the original
quota remained, could only emanate from the mind of a professional
feather-hunter, and Hume should not be blamed for more than the mere
repetition of such figures. Let it be said to the credit of Wilson, the
slaughterer of something near forty-five thousand impeyans, that he was
a careful observer of the birds' habits, and has given us an excellent
account, somewhat coloured by natives, but on the whole, the best we
have had in the past. But it is not pleasant to read of his waiting
until "twenty or thirty have got up and alighted in the surrounding
trees, and have then walked up to the different trees and fired at those
I wished to procure without alarming the rest, only those very close to
the one fired at being disturbed at each report."

Hume's opinion that in 1879 there were scores of places where one might
secure from ten to eighteen birds in a day, i