150 Memoir of Dr. T. C. Jerdon, by Sir Walter Elliot. 



defective because prepared from the figures alone, when his 

 type specimens were out of reach, or when, owing to the 

 movements entailed by duty and the desire to visit new 

 scenes, combined with habitual carelessness, they had been 

 lost or destroyed. This defect is conspicuous in the little 

 known department of Erpetology, at which he worked 

 zealously, and certainly discovered many new species, some 

 of which have been described Dr. J. E. Grey, Mr. Blyth, and 

 Dr. Stolickza, as well as by himself. Yet not more than 

 three or four are quoted on his sole authority in Gunther's 

 Indian Reptiles, and the few occasions on which Dr. 

 Gunther does mention him, are only to point out the 

 unrecognizable character of his descriptions*. 



The third of the series of Manuals, that of Reptiles, would 

 probably have repaired many of these faults. It has been 

 printed, and the sheets were sent home after his death, but 

 their ultimate disposal has not been determined yet. The 

 materials for the concluding volume of the series, the Fish, 

 are believed to have been in a state of forwardness, but what 

 has become of them I am not aware. 



It was his fond wish to have brought out new and im- 

 proved editions of these works, which were to include Assam, 

 the Khasi Hills, Cachar, Sylhet, Tipperah, Chittagong, 

 Burma, and Ceylon. His contributions to the Ibis were 

 preparatory to this object ; and he contemplated great im- 

 provements in the second of the series, especially with regard 

 to the micro-mammals, still involved in much confusion, to be 

 cleared up only by patient and careful comparison ot 

 specimens. Unfortunately, much of his varied knowledge 

 of facts has died with him, and he has left little among his 

 papers to compensate for the loss. 



Although he did not live to complete his great design, he 

 accomplished enough to be of incalculable value to the lovers 

 of natural history scattered over the length and breadth of 

 that vast country in which he laboured so zealously himself. 



* He was especially successful in obtaining a great number of new 

 Batracbiaris. One curious species was found on tbe Nilagiri Hills, from its 

 babit of uttering a peculiar metallic note, like repeated blows of a small 

 hammer, -which long eluded detection. It was generally supposed to be a 

 bird which neither Jerdon nor any one else could discover. At last the 

 patient watch of an old Shikaii in my service was rewaided by tracing the 

 note of the "Tinkler," as it was called, to a small burrowing frog which 

 appears as Limnodytes tinniens, n.s. (Jour. As. Soc Ben., xxii., 573) in his 

 Catalogue, and again as Ixalis tinniens in ■ his Notes (Proceedings As. 

 8oc. Ben., 1870, p. 85) ; but is not even mentioned by Gunther. 



