X. 



The Mammals of India.' 



No more important faunistic zoological work has ever been 

 attempted than the "Fauna of British India," of which the 

 present fasciculus concludes the volume devoted to the Mammals. 

 The need for such a comprehensive work, as we are informed in the 

 preface issued with the part before us, was strongly urged on the 

 Government of India by a representative body of zoologists in a 

 memorial signed in the autumn of the year 1881 ; and it reflects 

 no little credit on those in authority at the India Office that the 

 considerations urged in that memorial were so promptly answered. 

 The whole work was placed under the able editorship of Mr. W. T. 

 Blanford, whose reputation as a proficient in Indian zoology gene- 

 rally, and as a specialist in several branches thereof, is a sufficient 

 guarantee that it could not have been confided to better hands. At first 

 there was some doubt whether it would be found practicable to extend 

 the work beyond the limits of the Vertebrates, but we are now glad 

 to learn that such limits have not been imposed, and that the volumes 

 descriptive of the Moths are now actually in hand. The promptitude 

 with which the volumes allotted to the Vertebrates have been issued is 

 worthy of all praise, six out of the whole seven being completed by 

 the issue of this second fasciculus of the one devoted to the mammals. 

 We thus have the Mammals, by the Editor ; two volumes on Birds, 

 by Mr. E. W. Oates; one volume on Reptiles, by Mr. G. A. Boulenger ; 

 and two on Fishes, by the late Surgeon-Major Day. The issue of a 

 third volume on Birds will complete the Vertebrate series. 



The first fasciculus of the volume on mammals, which appeared 

 in 1887, contained the description of the various representatives of the 

 orders Primates, Carnivora, and Insectivora ; while in the present 

 issue we have the orders Chiroptera, Rodentia, Ungulata, Cetacea, 

 Sirenia, and Edentata, the two remaining groups being unrepresented 

 in the Indian area. We are informed in the preface that the total 

 number of species of mammals now recognised from British India, 

 Ceylon, and Burma, as well as the adjacent seas, just exceeds 400. In 

 Jerdon's " Mammals of India," published in 1867, thenumber was only 



1 The Fauna of British India, including Cevlon and Burma. — Mammalia. 

 By W. T. Blanford, LL.D., F.R.S. Part II., 8vo ; London, 1891 ; pp. i-xx, and 

 251-617 ; illustrated. 



