XVI ruEF.vcE TO Till-; rinsT edition. 



climbing perch, siiakeliead, ophidiuii, loiig-snout, doreo, poniplirct, vibaml- 

 fish, goby, carp, barbel, gudgeon, bream, white lisli, roach, flat-bellied 

 herring, thiTssa-ancliovy, bristle- tinned sprat, fresh-water herring, flying 

 fish, gar fish, haU'-billed gar fish, plagusia sole, brachirus turbot, adipose 

 cat fish, short-headed cat fish, eight-barbuled cat fish, long-finned cat fish, 

 two-barbuled cat fish, fork-tailed cat fish, barbulelcss cat fish, plotosus 

 cat fish, clarias cat fish, long-headed cat fish, hammer-headed shai'k, saw- 

 fish, skate or ray, sea porcupine or s(piare tish, fishing frog, common eel, 

 serpent-hearted eel, and conger eel. 



Still no pretensions are made in this work to comjjleteness. It is not 

 a book composed in the luxiuy of literary leisure, but a collection of notes 

 which I have been making during the twenty years of my residence in 

 this country in the corners of ray time that would otherwise have been 

 wasted. Often to forget my weariness when travelling, when it has been 

 necessary to bivouac in the jungles while the Karens have been seeking fuel 

 for their night fires, I have occupied myself with analyzing the flowers that 

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

 an occasional rejjtile, insect, or bird, that attracted my attention. With such 

 occuj^ations I have brightened nianj^ a solitary hour, and often has the most 

 unpromising situation 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 sand}^ beach and the arid wilds are full of wonders. 



Without books and without means to convey away specimens, ray plan 

 was to note down just such characteristics in the objects that I observed as 

 secured most of my attention ; but when I came to comj)are ray notes with 

 descriptions in books, they would often be found to contain insufficient data 

 to determine the species, and sometimes even the genus, but perhaps enougli 

 for the tribes or families. In Botany this was sometimes necessarily the case, 

 because I frequently met with a plant in flower without the fruit, or in fruit 

 without the flower, whei'e both flower 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 con- 

 tent, 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 

 observations which would enable me to distinguish the species. 



Further investigation will supply many deficiencies and correct many 

 errors that are inseparable from a first attempt like (lie present, wliieli involves 

 the observation of so many objects in so many diflerent departments of 

 natural 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 



