nature of india

The study of birds in India during the colonial period began with hunting and it was only later that more careful observations were made. Many civil servants and army officers took an interest in hunting for sport and often made notes on the birds that they shot while some of the more interesting species were skinned and sent back to museums in England for identification.

Early studies were made by Major Franklin in 1831 (Proc. Zool. Soc., 1831) followed by Colonel W. H. Sykes with a Catalogue of the Birds of the Bombay Deccan (Proc. Zool. Soc., 1832) and Samuel Tickell with a List of the Birds of Borabhum and Dholbum (Journal. Asiat. Society, 1833). The real identification work was however done back in England.^[34]

An ocean is a major body of saline water, and a principal component of the hydrosphere. Approximately 71% of the Earth's surface (an area of some 361 million square kilometers) is covered by ocean, a continuous body of water that is customarily divided into several principal oceans and smaller seas. More than half of this area is over 3,000 meters (9,800 feet) deep. Average oceanic salinity is around 35 parts per thousand (ppt) (3.5%), and nearly all seawater has a salinity in the range of 30 to 38 ppt. Though generally recognized as several 'separate' oceans, these waters comprise one global, interconnected body of salt water often referred to as the World Ocean or global ocean.^[31][32] This concept of a global ocean as a continuous body of water with relatively free interchange among its parts is of fundamental importance to oceanography.^[33]

True ornithology began with Thomas C. Jerdon (1811–1872) in southern India and much later Allan Octavian Hume (1829–1912) who built an entire network of ornithologists in India. He also started the first ornithological journal for the region, Stray Feathers, in which he described new species and edited notes from contributors across the region.
The large and widespread collection efforts of ornithologists spread around the region were deposited in the British Museum and in 1889, Blanford commented on the importance of the collection for Indian ornithology:

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 India lies within the Indomalaya ecozone and contains three biodiversity hotspots.^[140] One of 17 megadiverse countries, it hosts 8.6% of all mammalian, 13.7% of all avian, 7.9% of all reptilian, 6% of all amphibian, 12.2% of all piscine, and 6.0% of all flowering plant species.^[141][142] About 21.2% of the country's landmass is covered by forests (tree canopy density >10%), of which 12.2% comprises moderately or very dense forests (tree canopy density >40%).^[143] Endemism is high among plants, 33%, and among ecoregions such as the shola forests.^[144] Habitat ranges from the tropical rainforest of the Andaman Islands, Western Ghats, and North-East India to the coniferous forest of the Himalaya. Between these extremes lie the moist deciduous sal forest of eastern India; the dry deciduous teak forest of central and southern India; and the babul-dominated thorn forest of the central Deccan and western Gangetic plain.^[145] The medicinal neem, widely used in rural Indian herbal remedies, is a key Indian tree. The luxuriant pipal fig tree, shown on the seals of Mohenjo-daro, shaded Gautama Buddha as he sought enlightenment.