Bibliographical Notices. 513 
been a labour of love. He has, however, had the inestimable ad- 
vantage of constant correspondence, and, in latter years, of personal 
intercourse, with Mr. Blyth, of the Asiatic Society’s Museum, than 
whom no one would have been better qualified to write such a work, 
had his health been good and his time his own. But the constant 
drudgery of his unassisted labours, and above twenty-one years’ resi- 
dence in Calcutta, have so far injured his health as to preclude the 
present hope of his publishing a separate work. His voluminous wri- 
tings, however—reports, notices, monographs, &c.—scattered through 
twenty volumes of the ‘ Journal of the Asiatic Society ’ and in various 
English scientific periodicals, are permaneut proofs of his great talents 
and industry ; and were it not for those writings and the fine col- 
lection he has been the chief means of making in Calcutta, the 
present work would be much more imperfect than it now is.” 
Of the manner in which Dr. Jerdon has performed his task we 
must speak in terms of high praise. The scheme of the book is 
exactly what we think it ought to be—‘‘A Manual of Ornithology 
specially adapted for India,” as it is announced on the title-page, 
which, as being somewhat redundant, we have taken the liberty to 
curtail above. To this end the Surgeon- Major prefixes an “ Intro- 
duction,”’ containing nearly fifty pages of well-digested generalizations, 
or, as we might almost term them, a summary of the first principles 
of ornithology. These serve to show, if, indeed, it were necessary, 
that our author has turned to good account the specific knowledge 
of which the body of the book proves him to be possessed—know- 
ledge of a kind which so many naturalists, unfortunately, seem to be 
incapable of applying to higher purposes. But the utility of the 
** Introduction’ is not merely confined to the demonstration of this 
fact. It is unquestionable, we think, that a book like the present, 
though long demanded by advanced naturalists thoughout the world, 
has been most needed by a multitude of persons in our mighty pro- 
consulate—persons who know little of ornithology, though they love 
it much, amateurs who with the aid thus opportunely afforded them 
will ripen into ornithologists. Welcome, then, as the rains in their 
season, will be the ‘ Birds of India’ to men with such tastes, thirsting 
for information on the subject, for lack of which many of them must 
have seen their aspirations wither like vegetation in a time of 
drought. 
Our space will not admit of our going into details. We must beg 
our readers to take our word for it that we have tested the accuracy, 
so far as we have been able, of a good many of Dr. Jerdon’s descrip- 
tions and diagnostic characters, and we find they stand the trial ex- 
tremely well. Much of the book consists of matter the truth of 
which ex necessitate we cannot test, seeing that it embodies the 
results of the anthor’s personal experience, and we lay no claim to a 
special knowledge of Indian ornithology. But Dr. Jerdon is ob- 
viously an observer so carefully trained that we willingly accept 
upon trust his statements respecting the habits, the movements, 
in a word, all that is really meant by the /zstory of the birds of 
India. The greatest fault we have to find with the book (and we 
