IV PREFACE. 



several of the forms enumerated, now that better series of 

 specimeus have been collected, are no longer regarded as 

 distinct. 



Some acknowledgment of the assistance afforded to me in 

 the preparation of the present work will be found in the 

 Introduction. To the list of those who have aided in the 

 publication should be added the Trustees of the Indian 

 Museum, Calcutta, to whom I am indebted for the use of 

 the cuts prepared for Dobson's ' Monograph of Asiatic 

 Chiroptera/ and for the opportunity of comparing in London 

 some specimens belonging to the Indian Museum, I must 

 also express my particular obligation to Prof. W. H. Flower, 

 Director of the Natural History Collection in the British 

 Museum, for advice and information with regard to the 

 Cetacea; to Mr. R. Lydekker for aid in preparing the account 

 of the Ungulata ; to Mr. W. L. Sclater for advance sheets of 

 his Catalogue of Mammalia in the Indian Museum, and for 

 notes on specimens in the Calcutta Collections ; and to Mr. 

 Oldfield Thomas, of the British Museum, for assistance and 

 information of every kind, most freely afforded throughout 

 the progress of the work, in connection with the Mammalian 

 Collections under his supervision. 



There is another acknowledgment that should perhaps 

 have been made before, but for which the present affords a 

 good occasion. If, as I hope, the present series of works is 

 found useful by Indian naturalists, they will I am sure wish 

 that the names of those who took the first steps in bringing 

 the want of new Handbooks of Indian Zoology to the notice 

 of the Government of India should not remain unrecorded. 



The need for new and revised descriptive works had, for 

 some years before 1881, been felt and discussed amongst 

 naturalists in India, but the attention of the Government 

 was, I believe, first called to the matter hy a memorial dated 

 Sept. 15th of that year, prepared by Mr. P. L. Sclater, the 

 well-known Secretary of the Zoological Society, signed by 



