INTRODUCTION


"EHA"

Edward Hamilton Aitken, the author of the following sketches, was well
known to the present generation of Anglo-Indians, by his pen-name of
Eha, as an accurate and amusing writer on natural history subjects.
Those who were privileged to know him intimately, as the writer of this
sketch did, knew him as a Christian gentleman of singular simplicity and
modesty and great charm of manner. He was always ready to help a
fellow-worker in science or philanthropy if it were possible for him to
do so. Thus, indeed, began the friendship between us. For when plague
first invaded India in 1896, the writer was one of those sent to Bombay
to work at the problem of its causation from the scientific side,
thereby becoming interested in the life history of rats, which were
shown to be intimately connected with the spread of this dire disease.
Having for years admired Eha's books on natural history--_The Tribes on
my Frontier, An Indian Naturalist's Foreign Policy_, and _The
Naturalist on the Prowl_, I ventured to write to him on the subject of
rats and their habits, and asked him whether he could not throw some
light on the problem of plague and its spread, from the naturalist's
point of view.

In response to this appeal he wrote a most informing and characteristic
article for _The Times of India_ (July 19, 1899), which threw a flood of
light on the subject of the habits and characteristics of the Indian rat