512 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 Mouutains 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some, we believe, utterly withdrawn from sight, except at the chief 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 Boggleywollah,” 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 faunze 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 relinquished, however unwillingly, what to him has 
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