Mr. W. T. Blanford on 'Stray Feathers: 223 



Calcutta printers have a wonderful habit of embellishing the 

 works that come under their hands *, I must point out that 

 for many years past there has been a genus Blanfordia of 

 Arthur Adams established amongst the Mollusca, and that it 

 will be better to use some other appellation. 



Pyrrhulauda affirm, Blyth, which I obtained near Ka- 

 rachi, proves to be identical with P. melanauchen of Cabanis. 

 I have compared a specimen from Baluchistan with the type 

 of Blyth' s species in Mr. Gould's collection, and with speci- 

 mens of P. melanauchen collected by myself on the coast of 

 the Red Sea. I have no faith in the occurrence of this species 

 in Madras. 



The last paper in f Stray Feathers ' merely announces the 

 first draft of a conspectus of all the species of birds, so far as 

 is known to the author, hitherto observed in any part of India 

 — the latter name being used in a very wide sense, as Mr. Hume 

 makes it to include not only Cashmere, Nepal, and Sikkim, but 

 Ladak, and even Yarkand. I doubt if the admission of the lat- 

 ter country is advisable, because, if Yarkand be considered part 

 of India, why are Afghanistan, Kelat, and, for that matter, 

 Persia left out? Surely Yarkand has no claim, either on 

 zoological, geographical, ethnological, or political grounds, to 

 be included in India, however little we may be desirous that 

 it should be made part of Russia. I quite agree Avith Mr. 

 Hume in thinking that a list of the avifauna of India should 

 include the birds of all countries belonging to the government 

 of British India or dependent upon it, together with Ceylon ; 

 but since this limit is not coincident with the boundary of 

 any marked zoological province, it would be, I think, well to 

 omit all regions outside the line which marks the British rule. 



The conspectus promised will be no mere list, since Mr. 

 Hume promises many most valuable notes on nidification, and 



* In the present work errors in the spelling of names are rather fre- 

 quent ; thus on p. 25, Captain Shelley's name is spelt Shelly ; pp. 31-35, 

 Captain Feilden is called Captain Fielden ; on p. 45, Melizophilus striatus, 

 Brookes, appears instead of Brooks ; and on page 49, Sharp instead of 

 Sharpe is quoted as the author of the ' Monograph of Alcedinidae.' Those 

 who have had to do with Calcutta printers well know the extreme diffi- 

 culty of avoiding such mistakes. 



