PREFACE. 



pied myself with analyzing the flowers that were blooming 

 around my couch, or examining the fish that were caught ; 

 or an occasional reptile, insect, or bird that attracted my 

 attention. Such occupations have brightened many a 

 solitary hour ; and often has the most unpromising situa- 

 tion, proved most fruitful in interest ; for " the barren 

 heath, with its mosses, lichens, and insects, its stunted 

 shrubs and pale flowers, becomes a paradise under the 

 eye of observation ; and to the genuine thinker, the sandy 

 beach and the arid wild are full of wonders." 



Without books and without means to convey away spe- 

 cimens, my plan was to note down just such characteris- 

 tics in the objects that I observed, as secured most of my 

 attention ; but when I came to compare my notes with 

 descriptions in books, they would often be found to con- 

 tain insufficient data to determine the species, and some- 

 times even the genus, but perhaps enough for the tribe or 

 family. In botany this was necessarily not unusual, be- 

 cause I frequently met with a plant in flower without 

 the fruit, or in fruit without the flower ; where both flow- 

 er and fruit were necessary to determine the genus. Often 

 again, never contemplating publication, when I had no 

 use for the article in translation, and no object in being 

 precise, I was content, as with fish for instance, to satisfy 

 myself that it was a cat-fish, a member of the carp family, 

 or an eel as the case might be, without making observa- 

 tions which would enable me to distinguish the species. 



These notes would probably have remained in manu- 

 script, as they have done for many years, had it not been 

 for the liberal patronage of our Commissioner Major Bogle, 

 and a few other kind friends who interested themselves in 

 their publication ; the former subscribing for fifty copies, 

 and the latter for proportionately large numbers. 



Future investigation will supply many deficiences, and 

 correct many errors that are inseparable from a first at- 

 tempt like the present, which involves the observation of 

 so many objects, in so many different departments of na- 

 tural science, and their names in so many languages. 

 Still, it is confidently believed, that no one can longer 

 say of Farther India, as does Murray in his Encyclopedia 



