A Notice of Indian Cyprinide. 103 
me, to show you how creditably the author has performed his 
task ; he deserves, and will I trust, receive in the pages of the 
scientific journals of his native country, a faithful critique. 
Before closing this report, I would revert to a single circum- 
stance which is highly honorable to Dr. M’Clelland. It appears 
that Dr. Buchanan, during a long residence in India, had made a 
large collection of papers and drawings illustrating the natural 
history of that country, which were taken from him, as he was 
about to leave India, by the Marquis of Hastings, and deposited 
in the government house at the botanic garden in Calcutta—so 
that he was obliged when he reached Edinburgh, to publish his 
Gangetic Fishes without most of his plates. Dr. M’Clelland, 
when he finally knew of the existence of these drawings, was sur- 
prised to ascertain that Hardwicke in his “Illustrations” had freely 
copied many of them, without giving the slightest credit to Bu- 
chanan, and had even annexed to them new names, although the 
names of their discoverer were attached to the drawing, and in 
his own handwriting. But the names were not merely changed ; 
“during the twenty years Buchanan’s drawings lay at the botanic 
garden, before they were transferred to Hardwicke’s Lllustrations, 
many of the colors appear to have undergone a change, such as 
light blue and green becoming dark brown ; not aware of this, 
the copyist has not only imitated the altered colors, but added a 
little to their intensity ; the consequence of which is, that the 
figures thence obtained in the expensive work referred to, are 
made to appear in black, when they should only be a pale grey 
or green.” p. 355, note. Mortified to find, that a departed natu- 
ralist had thus been robbed of a portion of his well earned fame, 
and proud to be the means of rescuing from oblivion. the labors 
of Buchanan, Dr. M’Clelland has not only in every instance, 
when practicable, referred to his plates in the most generous man- 
ner, but has even presented us with some of the original plates, 
although he had made similar drawings previous to their discov- 
ery. His whole conduct in this transaction is noble and disinter- 
ested; and while the naturalist, after reading this volume, ae 
knowledges his obligations for the information received, he will 
also feel for the author a deep and abiding esteem. 
