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A SURVEY OF THE MAMMALIAN FAUNA OF 

 INDIA, BURMA AND CEYLON. 



Up to 1891, Naturalists in India had to rely for information 

 on Mammals to Dr. Jerdon's " Mammals of India," a delightful 

 book with many interesting notes on the habits of the different 

 animals, but sadly wanting in details of distribution, and complete- 

 ness in descriptions. This was through no fault of the author, 

 but owing to lack of good collections and the paucity of informa- 

 tion. At this time practically the only collections of Indian 

 Mammals of any importance were in the Indian Museum at 

 Calcutta and the British Museum in London. For observations 

 over and above his own, the author relied on those of Colonel 

 Sykes, Sir Walter Elliot, Brian Hodgson, Colonel Tickell, Major 

 Hutton, Horsfield, Blyth and Kelaart, all of whom had made 

 collections and published notes and papers in various journals and 

 proceedings. 



Some years later, namely, in 1884, R. A. Sterndale published 

 his " Natural History of Indian Mammalia," a purely popular 

 work not adding much to Jerdon's however. 



A few years before Sterndale's work was published, namely, in 

 1881, a memorial prepared by Dr. P. L. Sclater, then Secretary 

 to the Zoological Society, and signed by Darwin, Hooker, Huxley 

 and other well known Scientists, was presented to the Secretary 

 of State for India. In the memorial it was recommended that 

 a series of volumes dealing with the Fauna of India should be 

 prepared and that Dr. Blanford be appointed as editor. The out- 

 come of this memorial was that in June 1888 the first part of the 

 first volume, of the series was published. This dealt with the 

 Mammals as far as the Insectivora (Shrews and Bats), but it was 

 not till 1891 that the second part completing the Mammals was 

 published. The delay was caused by Dr. Blanford having to edit 



