474 Dr. J. E. Gray on Indian Mud- Tortoises. 



ferent native names, and the cooks as of different values as 

 articles of diet. The short paper itself is most confused and 

 most carelessly written, but with a most unwarranted as- 

 sumption of high scientific importance. The same species is 

 referred to under different names ; and the names given are 

 rarely used hy the authors quoted. For one example among 

 many, he speaks of " Trionyx javamcus, Schweigger," but 

 that author never uses such a name. I suspect this is from 

 carelessness and want of consideration*. But a friend has 

 pointed out that he gives one author as the authority for a 

 name when he differs from that writer, and gives another 

 author for the same name when it meets with his approval, 

 both being on the same authority. 



Dr. Anderson, when in London about a year ago, stated 

 that he did not think that I properly estimated the late Dr. 

 Fleming, a gentleman whom I knew personally and much 

 esteemed, but I was not aware that I had ever expressed or 

 written a word respecting his writings ; and he stated that for 

 all he (Dr. Anderson) knew in zoology he was indebted to the 

 lectures and teaching of that professor. I did not in the least 

 doubt his assertion, but only observed that Dr. Fleming be- 

 longed to a time long passed away, and that his best book 

 was a very diluted abstract of part of Cuvier's ' Efegne Animal,' 

 published in 1815, and entirely superseded by the second edi- 

 tion of that work. Dr. Anderson's paper in the last Number 

 of the ' Annals' confirms this statement ; for here, in 1872, we 

 just have what Dr. Buchanan Hamilton did at the end of the 

 eighteenth century, and what I did in the ' Synopsis of the 

 Reptiles,' published in 1831. 



Any one reading Dr. Anderson's paper would imagine that 

 my ' Illustrations of Indian Zoology ' was a modern publica- 

 tion, whereas it appeared in 1832, when, I believe, there was 

 not a single specimen of Trionyx from India in this country ; 

 but knowing that Dr. Buchanan Hamilton had studied the 

 genus, I published copies of his figures in my ' Illustrations,' 

 with his names, and compared them with figures in Hard- 

 wicke's collection of drawings from Indian specimens, and 

 published the results of my examination in my ' Synopsis 

 Reptilium,' in 1831. It is to be remembered that that very 

 industrious naturalist. General Hardwicke, to whose exertions 

 Indian zoology owes such a debt of gratitude, formed no less 

 than three collections, and had the misfortune to lose each of 



* Dr. Anderson pnblislied a paper in the ' Annals ' for 1871, vol. viii. 

 p. 324, entitled " On Testudo Phayrei, Theob. & Dr. Gray ; " but the whole 

 paper is about a Trmiyx, which must not be confounded with Testudo 

 Phayrei of Blyth. 



