Hume's opinion that in 1879 there were scores of places where one might secure from ten to eighteen birds in a day, is certainly not true to-day. Indeed, as early as 1858 we read that "This splendid bird, once so abundant on the Western Himalayas is now far from being so, in consequence of the numbers killed by sportsmen on account of its beauty. Whole tracts of mountain forest once frequented by the moonal are now almost without a single specimen." The same author goes on naively to tell the reader that "Among the most pleasant reminiscences of bygone days is a period of eleven days, spent by the author and a friend on the Choor Mountain near Simia, when among other trophies were numbered sixty-eight moonal pheasants, etc." [Illustration: 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] 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 even in the high, cool, hill-stations. The commercial value of an impeyan skin has varied from five dollars to twenty dollars, according to the number received annually. In 1876 an estimate placed the monthly average 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 at the other end _can be closed_, the slaughter will cease instantly and automatically. [Illustration: DEADFALL TRAPS IN BURMA A Long Series set Across a Valley, by the Kachins of the Burma-Chinese Border. A Wholesale Method of Wild-life Slaughter, Photographed by C. William Beebe, 1910]