PROSPECTUS. 



The want of brief, but comprehensive. Manuals of the Natural History of, 

 India has been long felt by all interested in such inquiries. At the present, it is 

 necessary to search through voluminous transactions of learned Societies, and 

 scientific Journals, to obtain any general acquaintance with what has been 

 already ascertained regarding the Fauna of India, and, excepting to a few more 

 favorably placed, even these are inaccessible. The issue of a Manual, which should 

 comprise all available information in sufficient detail for the discrimination and 

 identification of such objects of Natural History as might be met with, without 

 being rendered cumbrous by minutiae of synonymy or of history, has therefore 

 long been considered a desideratum. 



To meet this want it is proposed to publish a series of such Manuals for all 

 the Vertebrated Animals of India, containing characters of all the classes, 

 orders, families, and genera, and descriptions of all the species of all Mammals, 

 Birds, Eeptiles, and Fishes, found in India. 



The geographic limits referred to in this "Work will be, on the North the 

 water-shed of the Himalayas ; on the East the Teesta river, to its junction with 

 the Brahmapootra, and thence down the latter river to the Bay of Bengal ; on 

 the West the Indus from its exit from the hills to Kurrachee ; and on the South 

 Cape Comorin. 



The object will be to enable Naturalists and Travellers to identify any ani- 

 mals they may meet with, and for this purpose the descriptions, without being 

 minute, will be ample for discrimination. The habits and resorts of the dif- 

 ferent animals wiU be described as far as is known, and their geographical 

 distribution investigated, and on these points the author's own experience in 

 many parts of the country, from Darjeeling to Trichinopoly, wiU enable him to 

 give much new information. 



Short observations on the anatomy of the various famiUes, and references 

 to allied groups, not Indian, wiU be given, thus rendering the work a Hand-book 

 of Zoology specially adapted for India. 



Each Class will be published separately, and they will comprise — 



The BiKDS in two volumes, 8vo. 



Mammals in one volume, „ 



Reptiles in one volume, „ 



Fishes in one or two vol*. „ 



