PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITIOX. XV 



Gesenius, RoscnmuUor, Iliirris, and otlier BiWioal writers, tell tlieir readers 

 that cophcr designates Liiicsonia inermis, and Dr. Wrigbt, in liis Illustrations 

 of Indian Botany, gives a handsome coloured figure of Lriirsoiiin ii/Iki. To 

 a person not read in hotany these will be .regarded as ditiereiit species; but 

 on turning to my article, the reader will learn at a glance that they are 

 different names given by different writers to the same plant. Thus it wdl bo 

 seen that our common barking deer lies scattered over the pages of natural 

 history under twelve different names, and without the synonymes, it might 

 be taken for twelve different species. In like manner, when objects have 

 several native names, as they often have, I give all that I have heard. 



Still the investigator will not always obtain the object he seeks from the 

 native name, and this is a difficulty which no author can obviate, as it exists 

 in the language. Different objects sometimes have the same name, as, for 

 instance, the goat-sucker and the snipe. The Burmese call both wi/c-irofc 

 from their habit of dwelling on the eartli. Sometimes a slight distinction 

 is supposed to exist between different things, which is not always observed. 

 The Amherstia and the Jonesia are both at/iauhi trees, but the Amherst ia 

 is regarded as the female, and the Jonesia as the male tree, which is therefore 

 denominated atluuilii-jilw. So the male of the fragro'a is the gordonia or 

 anan-pho. The same object is often known by diflereut names. Our 

 knowledge of the existence of platina in Burmah was first furnished by 

 JMr. Lane, who said the Burmese called it slicen-tlian, but in his dictionary 

 he defines it s!iH-e-]>Iiipi or white gold. Some persons make distinctions 

 which others neglect. The water-lily and the nelunibium arc both called 

 Av/ff, or the l;i/n is restricted to the water-lilies and the nelunibium called 

 jm-duiig-jna. To many obscure species in every department of the natural 

 kingdom the natives have no definite names, on which they can agree among 

 themselves. 



The local names used in Tavoy and Aracan are given where known, 

 the latter on the authority of Col. Phayre, from whom also were first derived 

 some of the Burmese names for birds and the smaller mammalia. It is only 

 within the last two years that the projier Burman name for eagle has found 

 its way into books, though it was communicated first by Col. Phaj're some 

 eight or ten years ago. 



The present work does not explain mere technicalities for the naturalist, 

 but brings to light in the department in which it enters, a host of common 

 English words that have hitherto been left in this country like useless 

 lumber in the shade. To illustrate this position, take a single example from 

 the Ichth3'ology, in which, for tlie first time, the correct native names are 

 furnished of the following fish known to English readers: river-perch, 

 cockup, baud-fish, umber or sea-perch, Indian whiting, mullet, mango-fish, 



