INTRODUCTORY LETTER. 7 



designation of productions of a country which thoy never 

 inhabited. I have often had ocular demonstration of 

 mistakes of this nature. Some years ago, one of my 

 friends received a small collection of Javan reptiles from 

 a young planter of Sui-inam, who pretended to have col- 

 lected them himself in the vicinity of Paramaribo. I was 

 ready to demonstrate to the new possessor, that Javanese 

 animals, such as the Gecko guttatus, the Elaps furcatus, 

 the Galeotes furcatus, and others, could never at the 

 same time inhabit countries so remote from each other ; 

 no faith was attached to my demonstrations. We often 

 have reptiles of the islands of Ceylon and Java addressed 

 to us from the Cape of Good Hope. M. Klinkenberg of 

 Utrecht possesses a beautiful variety of the Boa Cenchria, 

 which the mariners brought to him as if caught in Java ; 

 and this error led the late Boie to establish a new species 

 of Boa, belonging to the Old World. One of my friends, 

 accepting the offer of an emigrant to the United States 

 to make collections of natural history, furnished him with 

 the means of making the first consignment. This consign- 

 ment arrived ; it contained a collection of the reptiles of 

 the Cape of Good Hope. Among the reptiles brought by 

 M. Blomhoff, and described by the late M. Boie as all 

 natives of Japan, are found species evidently from Java or 

 the adjacent islands, as has been long ago demonstrated 

 by MM. SiEBOLD and Burger. The late M. Spix has 

 figured among the animals discovered in Brazil, several 

 species collected during his sojourn at Gibraltar, and he 

 has even added notes on their manners, and on the places 

 which they inhabit, &c. I shall say nothing of the work 

 of Seba, in which most of the indications of the country 

 are inaccurate. 



Other difficulties, not less considerable, present them- 

 selves in criticising iconographic works. It would seem 

 that their authors have not been always impressed with 

 the aim which a figure should fulfil. According to my 

 views, it should not simply serve to make the animal it 

 represents recognisable, but it should be a substitute for 

 the animal to him who cannot procure it for himself. 

 Now, to answer this end, it is necessary that the figure 



