613 Bibliographical Notices. 



its importance. It is now a considerable time since our expectations 

 were excited by the news that, after our countrymen had for more 

 than a century securely established themselves on " the shores of 

 Ind," and for many years had pervaded the whole region lying between 

 the Himalaya Mountains and Cape Comorin, we were at length to 

 possess a concise manual of one portion of the fauna of Hindostan. 

 The words of promise are being fulfilled, and there remains now but 

 one more part to complete this useful work. The naturalist, how- 

 ever, can never afford to " rest and be thankful." Knowledge to 

 him, of all men, is infinite, and its acquisition is " never ending, still 

 beginning." Though we do most heartily congratulate our author 

 on the successful issue of his laborious undertaking — or, at least, 

 on having got the worst part of it over, — it is because we regard this 

 book as furnishing a sure basis for future operations that we deem 

 it one of such transcendent merit. The student who wished to be- 

 come acquainted with the particulars of Indian ornithology had 

 aforetime to hunt up sporadic papers scattered throughout the pub- 

 lications or reports of we know not how many learned bodies either 

 in Europe or Asia, most of these papers difficult of access, and 

 some, we believe, utterly withdrawn from sight, except at the chief 

 seats of government in the Indian peninsula or here in London. 

 Now all this is changed. When the present work is completed, the 

 " collector of BoggleywoUah," if he be so inclined, will be able to 

 start off to his up-country station with three not very thick octavos 

 in his bullock-trunks, and the assurance that he has therein a com- 

 pendium of all that has been already written on the subject. But 

 on this point we must let Dr. Jerdon speak for himself, which he 

 does with remarkable modesty as regards his own labours, and in 

 cordial and most gratifying terms towards those of one who might 

 almost have been considered a rival instead of a fellow-worker in the 

 same field. Here are the opening paragraphs of his Preface : — 



" The present work is the first of a series of manuals which the 

 author proposes to bring out, if his health be spared, on the Natural 

 History of the Vertebrated Animals of India. The want of such 

 books has long been greatly felt in this country ; and the increasing 

 attention now paid to natural history calls, more imperatively, for 

 the fulfilment of this desideratum. 



" The author's uninterrupted residence for above a quarter of a 

 century in India, during which period he has diligently examined 

 the faunae of the different districts in which he has been a resident 

 or a traveller, has enabled him to give in detail, from personal ob- 

 servation, the geographic distribution and limits of most of the 

 animals of this country ; for, with the exception of the North-West 

 Provinces, the Punjab, and Sindh, he has traversed and retraversed 

 the length and breadth of the continent of India, and has also visited 

 Burmah. 



" This experience, and an earnest wish to be of use to naturalists 

 and travellers in India, are the author's chief claims for attempting 

 such an ambitious task ; and, had others better qualified come forward, 

 he would have reUnquished, however unwillingly, what to him has 



