Journal of Travel and Natural History 295 



THE NATURALIST IN INDIA:-" 



INDIA is a wide word. It may, therefore, be as well to say at 

 the outset, that the portion of India over which Mr Adams' 

 wanderings extended is North West India. Stationed first at 

 Poonah, and afterwards in Scinde, his wanderings consist of ex- 

 peditions undertaken from these head-quarters. 



If we were to subdivide his volume according to the districts in 

 which his observations have been made, we should do so as fol- 

 lows : — I. Poonah ; 2. Scinde; 3. The salt ranges of the Punjaub ; 

 4. The interior of the North West Himmalayan range; 5. Cashmere; 

 6. Ladak. At all these places Mr Adams has collected original 

 information and specimens, and the present volume is a record of 

 the stores of both which he has accumulated. A sportsman not 

 less (perhaps even more) than a naturalist, he has picked up a good 

 deal of the natural history in his book in his efforts to fill his bag. 

 The general reader may, perhaps, think that there is an excess of 

 ornithology in it, but this is rather due to the ornithological details 

 being all mixed up with the narrative, even when they are nothing 

 more than isolated notices of the occurrence of species at parti- 

 cular localities, which makes the book drier in appearance than it 

 is in reality. It would, we think, have been an improvement if 

 (unless when there was something more than mere locality to 

 record) the birds met with at different places had been thrown 

 together in separate lists in an appendix at the end. His observa- 

 tions on other topics would then have flowed more uninterruptedly 

 and agreeably to the general reader ; and the ornithologist and 

 student of geographical distribution would have had all the facts 

 more especially interesting to them collected together to their 

 hands, instead of having to glean and pick them out piecemeal for 

 themselves from the general matter in the volume. Mr Adams' 

 department, by predilection however, is obviously ornithology, and 

 it would be rather hard measure to refuse a man a ride on his 

 own hobby in his own book. So far as regards the determination 



* Wanderings of a Naturalist in India. The Western Himmalayahs and 

 Cashmere. By Andrew Leith Adams, Surgeon, 22d Regiment. Edinburgh, 

 1867. 



