116

FISH AND GAMH.

It would not be correct to suppose that the fauna of Ceylon
is nothing more than an impoverished Indian fauna. The
matter is by no means so simple when the lower orders are
taken into consideration. It seems quite clear that while
many of the continental species crossed over to Ceylon at a
period when this Island was united to Southern India by a
former land connection, many other species have arrived
here by very different routes. In other words, Ceylon is
to be regarded as a zoogeographical province sui generis,
possessing its own distinctive features and interests.
With the economic progress of the Island during recent
times, the increase of cultivation, the development of railways,
 and the exploits of sportsmen, the herds of game in
many districts have been numerically reduced and have
taken refuge in the remoter jungles. Nevertheless game is
still plentiful in some of the Provinces. In the Eastern
Province, for example in the neighbourhood of Trincomalee,
‘elephants, buffaloes, sambur, spotted and red deer, and peafowl
 are met in almost every jungle throughout the district.”*
Moreover, the establishment of sanctuaries and close
seasons has checked the wholesale destruction of life, and
the time is happily still far distant when the wild attractions
of Ceylon will be no more than memories. In the sanctuary
at Yala, in the Southern Province,f nature, though *red
in tooth and claw,” holds undisputed sway, and here is a
veritable paradise for forest denizens and forest lovers.
Even now it is found necessary to offer rewards in some
districts for the destruction of leopards and bears, and we
are told, for example, that in 1901 payments were made for
the destruction of ten leopards and three bears in the Jaffna
District, “but since more is paid by traders for skins than
can be obtained in the official reward, the figures in no way
represent the actual killing of these animals.”}
No doubt civilization tends towards the extermination of
the Carnivora; and the disappearance of the leopard and
the bear from Ceylon would perhaps be considered as grea
a sign of progress as that of the wolf and the highwayman
from England. But the cubs of these creatures are ramarkably
 playful and fascinating.
It is well known that the different species of mammals,
the fur-bearing, milk-producing animals, exhibit a marked
tendency to segregate into family groups, which often display

* Lushington, C. M., Report on the Trincomalee District for 1901 (Ceylon
Administration Reports, 1901).
1 ¢f. Fowler, G. M.,, Administration Reports, Southern Province, 1900 and
1901.
1 Ievers, R, W., Administration Report, Northern Province, 1901.