Letters, Announceme7its, ^c. 387 



engaged in official duties. Collections on the scale of Mr. 

 Hume^s have never been made in India before, in any branch 

 of the animal kingdom ; and much time and care are devoted 

 to the determination and description of the large series of 

 skins collected. Indeed Mr. Hume may fairly claim to 

 have founded a school of ornithology in India ; and the great 

 attention now given to one of the most interesting classes in 

 the animal kingdom by trained observers has no small effect 

 in leading to a study of other branches of zoology, less attrac- 

 tive perhaps at first, but of equal scientific importance. 



" The whole bird-fauna of British India and its depen- 

 dencies, inclusive of Ceylon and Burma, as now known, com- 

 prises, according to Mr. Hume^s estimate, about 1700 well- 

 authenticated species, whilst only 1008 were enumerated in 

 Dr. Jerdon's ' Birds of India,^ the Assamese, Burmese, and 

 Ceylonese forms not being included. 



" Captain Legge^s ' History of the Birds of Ceylon ' is a 

 most important work, of which one quarto part, containing 

 34-7 pages, has already appeared. I am indebted to Mr. Hume 

 for an opportunity of seeing an early copy of this part — the 

 only copy, I believe, that has reached India; and I can only 

 indorse his opinion that it is the best work of the kind de- 

 voted to Indian zoology that has yet appeared. Carefully 

 and systematically arranged, very much on the model of 

 Dresser^s ' Birds of Europe,^ containing ample descriptions of 

 plumage, habits, distribution, and nidification, it is still free 

 from discursiveness ; and the plates, in which most of the 

 species peculiar to Ceylon are represented, are excellent. The 

 present part contains the Accipitres, Psittaci, and Picarise.^^ 



We need hardly add that we quite agree with Mr. Blanford 

 in his estimate of both these works. 



Date of Prjevalsky's 'Birds of Mongolia.' — In answer to a 

 question from Mr. Hume, we believe we may state that the 

 ornithological portion of Prjevalsky's work (which was trans- 

 lated and published in Kowley^s ' Ornithological Miscellany ') 

 was published at St. Petersburg in 1876, and forms vol. ii. of 



