About the Book
This book "Forty Years Among the Wild Animals of India:
From Mysore to the Himalayas" is a memoir chronicling the author's extensive experiences with India's wildlife over four decades. Hicks, a British naturalist and hunter, provides firsthand accounts of his encounters with tigers, elephants, and other animals, detailing the diverse habitats det from Mysore in the south to the Himalayan ranges. The book offers insights into wildlife behavior, hunting practices of the time, and the challenges of preserving India's rich biodiversity.
About the Author
F. C. Hicks (1872-1925) was a British naturalist, hunter, and author known for his extensive work in India. He spent four decades exploring and studying the country's wildlife, from the southern regions of Mysore to the Himalayas, documenting his experiences and contributing valuable insights into Indian wildlife and conservation.
Introduction
I AM told that a book of this description requires an "Introduction" to show what kind of an individual the author is, and what his qualifications are to treat the subject in question. This being so, I will have to cast back a bit to see what "hereditary qualifications I can scrape up in my support.
I think I am justified in saying that the passion for adventure and sport has been a dominant trait in my family for many generations, and was the cause of its close association with the Army and Navy in the turbulent times of the past. However, it will perhaps be sufficient to pick up the thread from my grandfather. The land of his birth was Cornwall, where he owned extensive properties both at Lostwithiel and Penzance; but the life of a country squire was not likely to suit a man of his stamp, so in common with the traditions of the family he too entered the Army and so saw considerable service. While stationed with his regiment in Ireland, being a man of private means, he maintained a large stable and a pack of stag-hounds, and also a pack of fox-hounds in England; and one of the results of his various hunting accidents was that he had to have his head trephined. But this did not daunt him, and even after he retired from the Army, he was still riding hard to hounds when past the age of sixty years, and ultimately succeeded in breaking his neck effectually while attempting an impossible jump.
His three sons, John, Richard and William, then took up the running-the two first entering the Army, and the third, my father, the Navy-and went through the thick of the Napoleonic wars, including the Peninsular War, Trafalgar and Waterloo; my uncle Richard, then a Captain, was severely wounded at Badajoz, while leading, for the second time, a forlorn hope to the breeches-lying disabled for twenty-four hours in a fosse among the dead and dying, with-among other wounds-a bayonet through his knee, before help arrived.
Preface
It must be kept in mind that the incidents described in this book are perhaps the pick of the experiences of a long period spent almost entirely in the pursuit of big game in dense jungles, where it is the rule, rather than the exception, for the most unexpected combination of circumstances to occur, and where all preconceived ideas are most liable to be completely confuted. Those sportsmen, who have had the most experience of the vast possibilities of the jungles, will be the last to say hastily that any given combination of circumstances is "impossible" in the jungles; and conversely those, with whom "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing." will be the first to jump to hasty conclusions and scoff about such subjects; either out of pure ignorance, or from spite and jealousy to impress on their hearers how vastly superior they are themselves to the man who has devoted nearly half a century entirely to the subject of which he treats.
However, since it may not be given to everyone to "know it all before "and better! I have in self-defence as it were taken the precaution of supplying as far as possible as much authentication as happens to be within my means to give, in the shape of details, such as the name of the exact locality and the exact date even to the day of the week in many cases at which the incident described occurred; so in such cases the scoffer will have it in his power to go in person if he chooses to the place named and make local enquiries as to whether or not the incident I describe actually took place there on the date I mentioned.
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