A Notice of Indian Cyprinidce. 103 



me, to show you how creditably the author has performed his 

 task ; he deserves, and will I trust, receive in the pages of the 

 scientific journals of his native country, a faithful critique. 



Before closing this report, I would revert to a single circum- 

 stance which is highly honorable to Dr. M'Clelland. It appears 

 that Dr. Buchanan, during a long residence in India, had made a 

 large collection of papers and drawings illustrating the natural 

 history of that country, which were taken from him, as he was 

 about to leave India, by the Marquis of Hastings, and deposited 

 in the government house at the botanic garden in Calcutta — so 

 that he was obliged when he reached Edinburgh, to publish his 

 Gangetic Fishes without most of his plates. Dr. M'Clelland, 

 when he finally knew of the existence of these drawings, was sur- 

 prised to ascertain that Hardwicke in his "Illustrations" had freely 

 copied many of them, without giving the slightest credit to Bu- 

 chanan, and had even annexed to them new names, although the 

 names of their discoverer were attached to the drawing, and in 

 his own handwriting. But the names were not merely changed ; 

 " during the twenty years Buchanan's drawings lay at the botanic 

 garden, before they were transferred to Hardwicke's Illustrations, 

 many of ihe colors appear to have undergone a change, such as 

 light blue and green becoming dark brown ; not aware of this, 

 the copyist has not only imitated the altered colors, but added a 

 little to their intensity ; the consequence of which is, that the 

 figures thence obtained in the expensive work referred to, are 

 made to appear in black, when they should only be a pale grey 

 or green." p. 355, note. Mortified to find, that a departed natu- 

 ralist had thus been robbed of a portion of his well earned fame, 

 and proud to be the means of rescuing from oblivion the labors 

 of Buchanan, Dr. M'Clelland has not only in every instance, 

 when practicable, referred to his plates in the most generous man- 

 ner, but has even presented us with some of the original plates, 

 although he had made similar drawings previous to their discov- 

 ery. His whole conduct in this transaction is noble and disinter- 

 ested ; and while the naturalist, after reading this volume, ac- 

 knowledges his obligations for the information received, he will 

 also feel for the author a deep and abiding esteem. 



