MAMMAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 393 



and Cantor in Malaya, Hodgson in Nepal, Hardwicke in what 

 is now the United Provinces, Sykes in the Dekhan, Elliot in the 

 Southern Mahratha Country, and Jerdon in Southern Madras 

 were all collecting and, to a greater or less extent, working out their 

 <;ollections. Many others again, such as Hutton, Boys and Tytler 

 were also collecting, while Blyth in India, Gray at the British 

 Museum, and others were dealing with the material so collected. 

 An immense advance was made in the classification of the Oriental 

 Mammals and indeed all the obvious species were recognised, 

 named and recorded. The work was all however on pre-Dar- 

 winian lines, i.e., the written descriptions dealt, for the most part, 

 •only with salient characters and marked differences, very many of 

 which are now known to be almost generic. Moreover, distances 

 in those days were enormous and the distribution of literature 

 :slow, and each man worked separately, so that over and over again, 

 in some cases the same animal, and commonly the same species 

 of animal from different localities, was described and named by two 

 ■or more workers. 



In recent j^^ears it has been fully recognised that not only is it 

 necessary to classify the " species," but that it is equally or even 

 more important to systematically record geographical variations, 

 which when sufficiently multiplied may, in the future, furnish data 

 for the investigation of the problems of variation and distribu- 

 tion. To this end it is necessary to examine, compare and record 

 not only well marked and striking differences, but even the most 

 trivial, provided such are fairly constant. 



It will be seen from what I have said above, that the work of 

 the old systematists is useless to this end. Yet the necessarily 

 strict rule of priority in nomenclature, without which the confu- 

 :sion of names would render systematic Zoology absolutely useless, 

 makes it necessary that these old species should be all re-examined. 

 The types on w^hich many were based, have been completely lost, 

 ■others are buried in Museums where reference to them is almost 

 impossible, while the residue in the National Collection are either 

 spirit specimens in which all colour characters have been lost, or 

 skin and skull specimens which have been for various periods stuffed 

 -and exposed to the light, &c., until they are of but little more use 



