844 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XX. 



This volume is an authoritative work issued by our National Museum 

 and naturally workers try to follow such guides ; if we cannot follow them, 

 of what use are they ; but if we do follow them, we fall ourselves and lead 

 all our students and co-workers into a bog of nomenclature and confusion. 

 If there were an end in sight one might hope, but there is none. 



We find one other defect in this work ; the author appears unable to 

 tolerate the work of Brunner, for so many years a master of this group, and 

 omits practically all the species he records from Burmah and India presuma- 

 ably because he doubts his identification. This is a pity and one may 

 perhaps doubt the wisdom of so many of Walker's obscurely described 

 species being given as valid with no special authority. Walker using we 

 believe a bit of bottle-glass as a lens, vaguely described many species in the 

 1870 Catalogue of the British Museum Orthoptera, these species being 

 like many of Motschoulsky's beetles, tacitly ignored as hopeless. Here 

 they revive, we hope, on the strength of the good specimens found in the 

 British Museum, though we fear not. 



The following is a summary of the recorded Indian, Burmah and Ceylon 

 grasshoppers and locusts as derived from the publications quoted : — 



Tetriginse, 59, Hancock. Genera Insectorum. 



Pneumorinee. O. 



Eumastacinse, 22, Burr, Genera Insectorum. 



Proscopiinse. O. 



Tryxalinge, 37 species. This Catalogue. 



Oedipodinss, 28 ,, „ 



Pyrgomorphinse, 21 species. Boliver. Genera Insectorum. 



Pamphaginse, 1 species. This Catalogue. 



Acridiinse, 103 „ ,, ,, 



The group has received very little attention in India, though grasshoppers 

 abound in the plains particularly, and their collection and stvidy might well 

 be an interesting work for naturalists. H. M. L. 



INDIAN BIRDS. * 



Judging from the frequent enquiries we receive, there is a great opening 

 for a popular book on the common Indian Birds. It is true that there are 

 already several books, but all of them either deal with a certain class of 

 birds or with those belonging to a particular district. 



The author in his preface tells us that " the object of this little book is 

 to enable people interested in our Indian birds to identify at sight those 

 they are likely to meet with in their compound or in their excursions into 

 the jungles." The book is divided into two parts, the first contains — 

 (a) Hindustani names. 



* " Indian Birds " being' a key to the " Common Birds of the Plains of India " by 

 Douglas-Dewar. — London, John Lane. 



