Page 223 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

DESTRUCTION OF BIRDS IN THE FAR EAST 201
outgoing shipments until he should be allowed to see what was going on within the warehouse. I hoped to be able to look over some of the frozen pheasants for interesting scientific material, but of course was not allowed to do so.
Although here in the heart of China, outside changes are not felt so strongly and the newly-acquired meat diet of the border and emigrant Chinese is hardly apparent, these warehouses have opened up a new source of revenue, which has met with instant response. Thousands and tens of thousands of wild shot or trapped pheasants and other birds are now brought to these establishments by the natives from far and near. The birds are frozen, and twice a year shipped on specially re- frigerated 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 theshipments. Nowthepheasantshaveforcenturiesexistedinenormous numbers in the endless ricefields of China, without doing any damage tothecrops. Infacttheycouldnotbepresentinsuchnumberswithout 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 ofnature. Letushopethatinsomewaythismaybeavoided,andthat 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 automobileswhereformerlywereonlycanoesandjungle. Iindeedfotmd this as reported, but while my task was difi'erent it was made no easier. Formerly, to be sure, one had from the start to paddle slowly or push alongthetrailsmadebynativesorgameanimals. Butthenthewild 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 monthwillbeprofitable,Icannotsay. Icanthinkonlyofthevanish- ing of the entire fauna and flora of many districts which I have seen as a direct result of this commercial activity. One leaves Port Swcttenham 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, allunderbrushcleared,allnativegrowthsvanished. FromKualaLum- pur 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. One can hardly imagine a more complete blotting out of the native fauna and flora of any one limited