transactions 01? thk sections, 99 



2. Centbal and Southebn China. 



In speaking of Norllaorn Cliiua I have introduced the names of tho two great 

 modern zoological discoverers in China, ]\Ii'. Robert Swinhoe and M. le Pere David. 

 Mr. Swinhoe's article on the Mammals of China, recently published in tho 

 Zoological Society's Proceedings (13), gives a complete list of the species known to 

 him to occur south of the Yangtsze. It includes those of the great island of For- 

 mosa, which is essentially part of China, although it possesses some endemic 

 species, and which was a complete terra incognita to naturalists before Mr. Swin- 

 hoe's happy selection as the first British Vice-Consul in 18G1. Mr. Swinhoe's last 

 revised Catalogue of the Birds of China, published in 1871, has been already referred 

 to. He is now at home, unfortunately in ill health, but is by- no means idle on his 

 bed of sickness, and has in contemplation, and, I may say, in actual preparation, a 

 complete work on Chinese Ornithology, for which he has secured the cooperation of 

 one of our most competent natiu'alists. 



The still more remarkable discoveries of Pere David have revealed to us the ex- 

 istence on the western outskirts of China, or rather on the border-lauds between 

 China and Tibet, of a fiiuna hitherto quite unknown to us, and apparently a pen- 

 dant of the Himalayan hill-fauna first investigated by Hodgson. In his recently 

 completed ' Rocherches sur les Mammiferes,' already referred to, M. Alphonse 

 Milne-Edwards has given us a complete account of M. David's wonderful dis- 

 coveries among the Mammals of this district. M. David's Birds were worked out 

 by the late Jules VoiTeaux, and the novelties described in the ' Nouvelles Archives ' 

 (14) ; but no complete account of them has yet been issued. In Herpetology, I 

 believe, M. David lias also made some remarkable discoveries, amongst which, not 

 tho least, assm'edly, is that of a second species of gigantic Salamander* in the 

 mountain-streams of Moupin. 



3. Burmah, Siam, and Cochin. 



I speak of these ancient kingdoms, which occupy the main part of the great pe- 

 ninsula of South-eastern Asia, principally to express my surprise at how little we 

 yet Icnow of them. There are several good correspondents of the Jardin des Plantes in 

 the French colony of Saigon, who have, I believe, transmitted a considerable number 

 of specimens to the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle ; but beyond the descriptions of a 

 certain number of novelties f we have as yet received no accoimt of them. The 

 two philosophic Kings of Siam appear not yet to have tm-ned their attention to 

 biological discovery, although there is certainly much to be done in the interior of 

 that State, with which the late M. Mouhot, had his life been spared, would probably 

 have made us better acquainted. As it happens we have only one published me- 

 moir (15) upon the results which this unfortimate naturalist achieved. 



Lower Burmah now forms part of British India, and will be doubtless well 

 explored. As regards Burmah proper and the Shan-states, om: Indian legislators 

 appointed a most efficient naturalist to accompany the Yunan Expedition of 18G8 

 (16), but, when he returned, refused or neglected to provide him; with the facilities 

 to work out and publish his results. I rejoice, however, to learn that this error has 

 been to a certain extent remedied, and that Dr. Anderson has now in preparation 

 a connected accoimt of his Yunan discoveries, which is to be issued by the Linnean 

 Society in their ' Transactions.' A separate publication of these results, however, 

 would not have involved much additional expense, and would have been more 

 worthy of the Government which sent out tho Expedition. 



4. Malay Peninsula. 



The Malay peninsula belongs unquestionably to the same Subfauna as Sumatra. 

 Its zoology "is tolerably well known to us fi'om numerous collections that havfe 

 reached this country, but a modern revision of all the classes of Vertebrates is much 

 to be desired. About twenty years ago, Dr. Cantor, of the East-Indian Medical 

 Service, published catalogues of the Mammals (17), Reptiles (18), and Fishes (19) 



* Sicholdia davidkina, Blanchard. 



t E. g. Cerccypithecus nigripes, Milne-Edwards, and Polyplectron germaini, Elliot. 



