THE ZOOLOGY OP EETTTSH IXDIA. 155 



tries immediately adjoining — indeed much of the territory now sub- 

 ject to British rule was terra incognita in the days of Linnaeus and his 

 immediate followers, at any rate, as far as its Natural products are 

 concerned. " It is only within a very recent period," says the late 

 Mr. Strickland, writing in 18i4, " that any really original and 

 " trustworthy researches have been made into Indian Ornithology. 

 *' Twenty years ago, the utmost that was done by the numerous 

 " British officers in that country to illustrate this science, was to 

 " collect drawings of the species which attracted their notice. These 

 " drawings were in most cases made by native artists, who, be- 

 " ing utterly ignorant of any scientific principles, executed them in 

 " a stiff mechanical style, and neglected the more minute but often 

 " highly important characters. Such designs are useful as aids to 

 " scientific research, but ought not to usurp its place ; yet, from 

 " these materials the too undiscriminating Latham described, and 

 " named a great number of so-called species, many of which have 

 " not yet been identified in nature. The largest collection of these 

 " drawings was made by the late General Hardwicke, a selection of 

 " which were engraved and published in 1830 ; but though care- 

 " fully edited by Dr. T. E. Gray, the number of nominal species 

 " there introduced, shows the danger of founding specific characters 

 " on the sole authority of drawings." 



About the year 1830, however, several British officers resident in 

 India became interested in the subject of Ornithology. The first 

 contribution from these gentlemen to our scientific literature, was 

 Major Franklin's " Catalogue of Birds, collected on the Ganges be- 

 tween Calcutta and Benares, and on the Yindhyan HiUs," pub- 

 lished in the Zoological Society's " Proceedings" for 1831. Tliis was 

 shortly followed by Col. Sykes' " Catalogue of Birds observed in the 

 Dukhun," issued in the following volume of the same journal. About 

 the same time also the " Journal" of the " Asiatic Society of Ben- 

 gal" — a well-known scientific institution, of the merits of which we 

 have already spoken in our last number — was started, and a third 

 officer in the East Indian service, Lieut.-Col. S. E. Tickell, w-hose 

 name is also well known to Science — published in it, " a list of the 

 birds of Borabhum and Dholbum." In the succeeding volumes of 

 that " valuable repertory of Oriental Literature," will be found 

 numerous Ornithological papers of these and other Indian Natural- 

 ists — such as Hodgson, Hutton, Pearson, McClelland, Elliot, and 

 Blyth, who have all worked long and laboriously in the same good 



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