by the natives from far and near. The
birds are frozen, and twice a year shipped on specially refrigerated P.
and O. steamships to England and the continent of Europe where they seem
to find a ready sale. Pigs and chickens also figure in the shipments.
Now the pheasants have for centuries existed in enormous numbers in the
endless ricefields of China, without doing any damage to the crops. In
fact they could not be present in such numbers without being an
important factor in keeping down insect and other enemies of the grain.
When their numbers are decimated as they are being at present, there
must eventually result a serious upsetting of the balance of nature. Let
us hope that in some way this may be avoided, and that the present
famine deaths of thirty thousand or more in some provinces will not be
increased many fold.

When I started on this search for pheasants I was repeatedly told by old
explorers in the east that my task would be very different from theirs
of thirty years ago; that I would find steamers, railroads and
automobiles where formerly were only canoes and jungle. I indeed found
this as reported, but while my task was different it was made no easier.
Formerly, to be sure, one had from the start to paddle slowly or push
along the trails made by natives or game animals. But then the wild life
was encountered at once, while I found it always far from the end of the
steamer's route or the railroad's terminal, and still to be reached only
by the most primitive modes of travel.

I cite this to give point to my next great cause of destruction; the
burning and clearing of vast stretches of country for the planting of
rubber trees. The East seems rubber mad, and whether the enormous output
which will result from the millions of trees set out month after month
will be profitable, I cannot say. I can think only of the vanishing of
the _entire fauna_ and _flora_ of many districts which I have seen as a
direct result of this commercial activity. One leaves Port Swettenham on
the west coast of Selangor, and for the hour's run to Kuala Lumpur sees
hardly anything but vast radiating lines of spindling rubber trees, all
underbrush cleared, all native growths vanished. From Kuala Lumpur to
Kuala Kubu at the very foot of the mountain backbone of the Malay
Peninsula, the same holds true. And where some area appears not under
cultivation, the climbing fern and a coarse, useless "lalang" grass
covers every inch of ground. On