Page 220 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

198 OUR VANISHING WILD LIFE
SILVER PHEASANT SKINS SEIZED AT RANGOON, BRITISH BURMA
About 600 Skins out of Several Thousand Confiscated in the Custom House, on their way to the London Feather Market. Photographed by Mr. Beebe
almost without a single specimen." The same aiithor goes on naively to tell the reader that "Among the most pleasant reminiscences of by- gone days is a period of eleven days, spent by the author and a friend on the Choor Mountain near Simla, when among other trophies were numbered sixty-eight moonal pheasants, etc."
For some unaccountable reason there is, or was for many years, a very prevalent idea that the enormous number of skins which have poured into the London market were from birds bred in the vicinity of Calcutta. When we remember the intense heat of that low-lying city, and learn from the records of the Calcutta Zoological Garden that impeyans and tragopans are even shorter-lived than in Europe, the absurdity of the idea is apparent. In spite of numberless inquiries throughout India, I failed to learn of a single captive young bird ever hatched and reared eveninthehigh,cool,hill-stations. Thecommercialvalueofanimpeyan skin has varied from five dollars to twenty dollars, according to the num- berreceivedannually. In1876anestimateplacedthemonthlyaverage of impeyans received in London at from two to eight hundred.
In such a case as Nepal, direct protective laws are of no avail. All humane arguments are useless, but if the markets aJ: the other end can be closed, the slaughter will cease instantly and automatically.