1873.] President's Address. 55 



no possible means of knowing what lias has been done, or what is already 

 well known. Hence the supreme value of such monographs, compiled by 

 those who have made a special study of the different groups and brought 

 their knowledge up to date. No question such monographs would very 

 rapidly require additions and call for alterations. Indeed this is the very 

 result which would be sought by their publication, the bringing in new facts 

 and exciting wider attention to the investigation. But this would not detract 

 from their value, as statements of knowledge acquired up to a certain date, 

 and as affording a safe and carefully determined point of departure, from, 

 which future enquirers might start on their voyage of discovery. 



The contributions of our able Secretary, Dr. Stoliczka, are valuable as 

 usual. Besides his molluscan papers to which I have just alluded, we have 

 a remarkably interesting and valuable paper on the Mammals and Birds 

 inhabiting Kutch, — an admirable type of what the study of local faunaj is 

 capable of yielding. He has also given some valuable notes on new or little 

 known Lizards, and on Indian Batrachia ; these papers on Kutch reptiles 

 and Sind reptiles are sufficiently illustrated, and together constitute a range 

 of additions to our knowledge of the Natural History of the country of 

 the highest value and greatest scientific importance. 



Ornithology has added to its store in the papers by Mr. Brookes on the 

 Birds of Cashmir, and his brief notes on the Eagles, and Swans, &c. Mr. 

 Hume has given a short critical notice of some Burmese birds ; Major Godwin- 

 Austen a third list of birds found in the Kasia and G-aro hills, while Mr. W. 

 Blanford has described and beautifully illustrated the birds of Sikkim. He 

 has also given in the Journal the last part of a very interesting and charm- 

 ing account of his trip to the borders of Thibet in the Sikkim country, 

 devoted entirely to the geological portion of his enquiries. 



But while this summary will give sufficient evidence that the study of 

 Natural History has lost none of its absorbing interest, and that the Asiatic 

 Society of Bengal has fully and nobly maintained its grand traditional posi- 

 tion as the repository of most of the advances made in these enquiries in this 

 country, we can also congratulate you, gentlemen, that activity has been 

 shown in other directions also, and outside our ranks. There is at last a fair 

 prospect of the ' Flora Indica,' commenced many years since by Drs. Hooker 

 and Thomson, being carried out under Dr. Hooker's guidance, and we are 

 delighted to welcome it as a great, and at the same time necessary, contribution 

 to our means of progress. The ' Flora Sylvatica' of Beddome also progresses 

 soundly : the ' Conchologica Indica' of Hanley and Theobald, a work which, 

 with all its very serious shortcomings, will be of great utility and value — still 

 finds support and appears with regularity, while during the year we have had 

 to welcome a new candidate for this support in an Indian magazine devoted 

 to Ornithology. We could have wished that the author had completed the 



