hired artists to paint many subjects including plants and animals. Hunting and falconry were also extensively practised. They also employed scribes and were among the first to document their observations of nature in India. The foremost of the observers were Jehangir (1569–1627) and Babur (1483–1530) (See also Baburnama). Babur The notes of Babur for instance indicate the former distribution of the rhinoceros as far west as the Indus: Salim Ali provides more details of this incident: Jahangir Jahangir also kept detailed records of his hunts. From the ages of 12 (1580) to 48, 28,532 animals had been hunted with 17,167 by himself. These included 86 tigers (and lions), 9 bears, leopards, foxes, otters (ubdilao) and hyaenas, 889 – blue bulls (nilgai) and 35 mhaka. Salim Ali suggests that the mhaka must refer to swamp deer. Salim Ali in his 1927 article The Moghul emperors of India and naturalists and sportsmen notes: Ustad Mansur, a 17th-century court artist of Jehangir, was the first man to accurately paint the Siberian crane. The dodo was brought to Jehangir's court via Portuguese controlled Goa and an unsigned painting of it in the Hermitage Museum is attributed to Mansur. Pre-colonial period Hortus indicus malabaricus was the oldest regional flora for any part of the world and was published in India in the 18th century by the Dutch East India Company through the work of Hendrik van Rheede (1636–1691). Colonial period The East India Company was quick to note the interest in natural curiosities and set up the first museum. The collections grew rapidly. The Indian Civil Services brought many British naturalists to India. Some collected species on behalf of British and other European naturalists and museums, while others carried out their studies entirely on their own. Historians have linked the birth of museums to colonialism. These massive collections and their documentation led to the production of numerous works including The Fauna of British India, Including Ceylon and Burma series. The earliest effort to document the fauna of India was perhaps that of Thomas Hardwicke (1755–1835), a military officer in India who hired local artists to produce a huge collection of illustrations of Indian animals. This was subsequently studied by John Edward Gray (1800–1875) and led to the publication of Illustrations of Indian zoology: chiefly selected from the collection of Major-General Hardwicke and consisted of 202 colour plates. A large and growing number of naturalists with