1833.] Note on Zoology. 417 
IV.—Note on the Zoology of the 2nd Part of the Transactions of the 
Physical Class of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. 
Tn India, as in almost every other country of the civilized world, 
natural history, and more especially that part termed Zoology, has 
been of late years making rapid progress. And surely there is no coun- 
try better situated than Bengal for becoming celebrated for the number 
and extent of its collections, and the rareness of the specimens which 
may compose them. For, fertile as may be the regions of South 
America in the productions of animated nature, that field has been 
repeatedly traversed by the most celebrated men of science in modern 
times ; and, many well qualified and observant men, have, at different 
periods, favoured the world with their researches, made during a long 
residence on that continent. But India has not till now been viewed, 
by Englishmen, as the rich mine of the treasures of science it really 
is; and though foreign nations have sent out able naturalists to travel 
through the country, and to stretch forth their hands to all they could 
seize in their line of march; get, the very nature of a travelling 
zoologist’s occupation is such, as to prevent him from snatching at more 
than a few of the gems on the surface of things. He may collect and 
preserve; he may take home and classify : but much is set down in 
haste, much is forgotten; and he cannot become the observer of 
nature and all her secrets: while the manners, the habits, and the 
various interesting points of character, only to be developed by a long 
and intimate acquaintance with the animals he meets, must be to him 
unknown. These can only be known through the labours of men, not 
better qualified, but more favourably situated for the matured studies 
of zoology than himself. 
Sensible of this hiatus in the labours of travelling naturalists, lovers 
of natural history have established menageries and aviaries at home - 
to make up, so far as close intercommunion with animals in confine- 
ment can make up, for the deficiency of knowlege, felt after all had 
been gleaned from books and collections. But natural history must be 
pursued through tracks different from those of the casual observer of 
wild animals in foreign countries; or, of the closet naturalist, who 
views them in a state of degradation, with broken spirits and ruined 
health, the sure concomitants of slavery in the brute as in man. A 
true naturalist must go forth into the wilderness. He must follow the 
objects of his much-loved science into the depths of the forest, to their 
native haunts, with the intent to observe rather than to destroy: and 
there, undistracted by other thoughts, and elevated by the magnifi- 
cent scenery around him, he beholds their caresses, or their cruelties ; 
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