(176) ) [Jan. 
REVIEWS. 
THE BIRDS OF INDIA.* 
Tun want of text-books on the Natural History of our colonial and 
foreign possessions, has been long and severely felt by the many 
residents in them who are desirous of employing their hours of 
leisure or recreation, in the pursuit of this most attractive study. As 
regards Botany, the energy of the Director of the Royal Botanic 
Gardens at Kew has already accomplished much towards the attain- 
ment of this desirable object. Some years since, Sir William Hooker’s 
urgent representations to the Colonial Office succeeded in inducing 
that department to take into consideration a scheme which he pro- 
pounded, for issuing a complete series of Manuals of the Botany of the 
different Colonies, and although the small sums necessary to effect this 
object were, with one exception, grudged to him by the Imperial Ex- 
chequer, the Colonies themselves have in many instances taken up the . 
matter, and there is little doubt that Sir William Hooker’s scheme 
will eventually be carried out in its integrity. 
Our zoologists have not as yet followed the good example thus set 
before them. Their field of operations is much more extensive, they are 
less united as a body, and they have certainly no single leader amongst 
them, who occupies a corresponding situation to that filled by Sir 
William Hooker with regard to the sister science. So far as concerns 
the zoology of our foreign and colonial possessions, therefore, we 
must for the present look to what the unassisted energies of private 
individuals can accomplish. And we must be thankful when even 
such indirect sanction and assistance as the Government of India has 
bestowed on Dr. Jerdon’s present undertaking can be obtained. 
Dr. T. C. Jerdon’s name is well known in connection with many . 
contributions to the Natural History of India, which he has made 
during a long service, in different parts of that country, as a medical 
officer of the Indian army. In 1839, Dr. Jerdon commenced the 
publication in the ‘Madras Journal of Literature and Science’ of a 
catalogue of the birds of Southern India. This with its supplements 
was completed in 1844, and still remains our best authority on the 
ornithology of the districts of which it treats. In 1844, Dr. Jerdon 
* «The Birds of India: being a Natural History of all the Birds known to 
inhabit Continental India; with Descriptions of the Species, Genera, Families, 
Tribes and Orders, and a Brief Notice of such Families as are not found in India ; 
making it a Manual of Ornithology specially adapted for India.’ By T. C. Jerdon, 
Surgeon-Major, &c. Caleutta, 1862. Vols. I. and II. pt. 1. 
