xlii A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 
12 years to ascertain the whereabouts of this invaluable collection, can find no trace 
of it! | 
There is no record of any natural history specimens having been preserved while 
Buchanan was in charge of the menagerie at Barrackpur in 1803-05, but many 
drawings and descriptions were prepared, These were lent to Buchanan, by order of 
Lord Minto, when he began the survey of Bengal in 1807, and were duly returned 
by him to Government, on 20th February 1815, when handing in the manuscript of 
his report regarding Gorakhpur, the last of the districts that he had surveyed. The 
manuscripts and the drawings are now in the library of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 
where they appear to have been deposited in or about 1839. Their history has, since 
25th February 1815, become blended with that of the collections, drawings and 
descriptions relative to the great survey of Bengal. | 
From Buchanan’s letters to Roxburgh we know that except during his stay at 
Goalpara in 1808, and except for what he was able to obtain by means of native 
collectors despatehed across the Nepalese frontier in 1810 and again in 1813-14, he did not 
find it possible to make large botanical collections. Still the total number of specimens 
obtained during the seven years of survey was very respectable, because the manuscript 
catalogue of the collection, that he succeeded in making іп 1822, reaches 2599 numbers. 
We know, too, that he made drawings and descriptions, ard from the evidence of the 
native artists whom he employed, which was submitted to Government, in connection 
with an order received from the Court of Directors early іп 1816, we learn that the 
preparation of these was undertaken with Buchanan’s usual method and forethought. 
The artists he employed, who hid previously been in the employment of Roxburgh, 
and had in fact been provided by him, assured Dr. Hare, who superseded Wallich as 
Superintendent of the Botanic Garden in April 1816, that they were directed to make 
drawings only of such plants as had not already been figured by Roxburgh. It is 
equally certain that his drawings -and descriptions of animals were similarly restricted 
to species not previously dealt with by himself at Barrackpur; to ensure this being 
so, he borrowed these Barrackpur drawings. The drawings and descriptions of fishes 
were similarly altogether supplementary to those made by himself when stationed at 
Puttahaut and Baruipur; these latter drawings were cf course his own private property 
and remained in his own custody daring the survey; after he reached Europe, 
they were utilised subsequently in illustrating his account of the Gangetic fishes. 
Whatever the details as regards these survey period drawings may have been, we 
know that after asking for and obtaining: permission to take all these collections 
with their drawings and deseriptions home to the Court of Directors, Buchanan was 
ee 
' For the benefit of workers who, like himself, шау have cecasion at times to deal with the species first де. 
_seribed by D. Don in the Prodromus it may be here mentioned that even as regards Wallich’s specimens there is a 
wey out of the ditfieulty created by the loss ot Lambert’s Nepal collection. Sets corresponding to the lost one 
which Wallich gave to Lambert were given to Mr. A. P. DeCandolle and to Professor Hornemann so that а 
journey to Geneva or Copenhagen should afford an opportunity of consulting actual duplicates of Wallich's 
missing plants. Tho reason for ihe neglect of this particular collection was largely personal dislike for Don. 
The exeuse was that Wallich had in the meantime distributed the great E. I. C. Hert 
it all Wallich’s Nepal plants. This was doubtless true. But the difficulty is that Wallich and the friends who 
been done, and the treatment accorded to the Nepalese portion of this distributi 
from that of Wallich himself in 1819 and his little reference to whit D 
