182 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 



probably the action recorded of the White-handed Gibbon by Mr. 

 Blanford as " scooping up water." 



Few of the illustrations are original, and none of any artistic 

 merit, but the anatomical drawings have considerable scientific 

 value apart from these considerations. 



On the whole, as observed above, if we ever get the rest of this 

 book, it is going to be " The Mammals of India." 



As regards the Reptiles and Batrachia, we are promised a volume 

 or so from Mr. Boulenger of the British Museum, a most competent 

 authority, except for the trifle that he is not known to have 

 ever been in India for anything worth calling a residence. It will 

 be time enough to criticize Mr. Boulenger's work when we see 

 it ; and he, if any man, deserves kindly criticism, for his aid 

 has been unsparingly given to all Indian Naturalists who have 

 sought it. 



The next thing to consider is the Ornithology. 



Of this we have as yet a single volume devoted to the Passerine 

 Birds, and fathered by Mr. Eugene Oates, whose name is already 

 favourably known to this Society. It is to be regretted that the 

 Editor (not Mr. Oates ) has thought fit to preface it with the remark 

 that " the classification adopted by Jerdon was obsolete even when 

 he wrote," which is in very bad taste and inaccurate. 



The classification in question is hardly obsolete yet, and several 

 observations of Jerdon's show that he adopted it, as others since him 

 have done, for the sake of his readers. The result has justified him. 

 His work is at this day an Indian Classic. Let us see what is offered 

 to us to supersede it. 



Any modern Indian Ornithology must contain nearly 50 per cent, 

 more species than Jerdon's work, chiefly, as Mr. Blanford is careful 

 to observe, because the modern area is nearly double of Jerdon's, 

 and includes countries very different from those to which his work 

 was restricted — by order. He did, so far as he could, remark upon 

 the species of what were, to him, borderlands, and are to us as 

 naturally parts of British India as Madras and Bombay. But Ceylon, 

 Burma, the Malay Peninsula, and much of his Afghanistan and 

 Beluchistan are now parts of British India. 



Hence, rather than from any failure of his or his predecessor's 



