THE 200LOG1 OF BEITISH INDIA. 157 



correspondents, Mr. Blyth prepared and published in 1849, a " list 

 of the specimens of birds" in the Society's Museum, which is of great 

 scientific value, and for some years remained the only available guide 

 for students to the scattered records of Indian Ornithology. 



Although the Presidency of Madras has no Scientific Institution 

 to compare with the Asiatic Society of Bengal, it produced for some 

 years a " Journal of Literature and Science," to which Dr. Jerdon 

 himself and Mr. Walter Elliot, lately member of the Supreme 

 Council of that Presidency, contributed various memoirs relating to 

 the characters and habits of the birds of that country. Dr. Jer- 

 don's " Catalogue of the Birds of Southern India," with its two 

 Supplements, published in that Journal in 1839, and the following 

 years, still remains our best authority on the Ornithology of that 

 district. In 1844, Dr. Jerdon made another valuable contribution 

 to our knowledge of the birds of this part of India, by the issue of 

 his " Illustrations of Indian Ornithology," in which fifty, chiefly 

 before-unfigured birds of Southern India, are pourtrayed in a style 

 which has generally been allowed to be very creditable, considering 

 the circumstances under which the work was produced. 



In 1839, the late Dr. John M'Clellan published in the Zoological 

 Society's Proceedings, a catalogue of a small collection of Mammals 

 and Birds, which he had collected in Assam, during his service with 

 an expedition sent by the East India Company into that country. 

 Little has been done, as far as we know, since that period, towards 

 the further investigation of the Birds of Assam, and there is no 

 doubt that the extreme frontiers of the British dominions in that 

 direction, which now embrace a portion of the water-shed of the 

 great rivers of Burmah, contain a promising field of investigation 

 for future naturalists. 



Of several minor contributions to the Ornithology of India, Dr. 

 Jerdon, in his Introduction, speaks as follows : — 



" Burgess has given an account of the habits, and nidification of 

 " many of the Birds of Western India (Proc. Zool. Soc, 1854-55) ; 

 " and Dr. Adams (Proc. Zool. Soc, 1859-60), has published two 

 " lists, one of the Birds of Cashmere, and the other of the N. AY. 



■R-ell to imitate. By comparing complete lists of the species comprised in each 

 successive accession to the museum, accompanied by critical remarks on the more 

 novel and interesting specimens, previous to then* being incorporated into the general 

 collection, a number of important observations on structiu-e, habits, and geograpliical 

 distribution are preserved from oblivion."— i?e?;or^ of the Brit. Ass. 1844, p. 187. 



