NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 339 



have been made — British India. The author has distinct claims 

 to be ranked among zoologists ; his ' Thanatophidia of India ' is 

 the result of long, original, and valuable work on the intricate 

 subject of Snake-poisoning ; he was the proposer at the Council 

 of the Asiatic Society for an ethnological investigation of the 

 Indian races, which produced Dalton's reports on the different 

 tribes in Bengal ; and he projected the idea of the Zoological 

 Gardens at Calcutta, which he subsequently had the satisfaction 

 of seeing fully accomplished. 



In the volume as a whole, the reader will not find very much 

 distinctly zoological information, but he will meet with a most 

 entertaining history of his own time, which after all is the period 

 whose story we can appreciate best, for it appertains to the 

 incidents belonging to our own sojourn on the planet, and of 

 these we know most. There is a romance in the past, but a 

 reality in our own lives, and Sir Joseph Fayrer takes us again 

 over the old ground. The Indian Mutiny and the Prince of 

 Wales's visit to India are the connecting links of interest, though 

 perhaps both subjects have already reached the stage of exhaustive 

 record. 



The myth of the great Sea-serpent is again before us. The 

 author had corresponded with Lieutenant Forsyth, of H.M.S. 

 ' Osborne,' relative to "a marine creature seen by the officers of 

 that ship not far from Sicily." Sir Joseph is of opinion that 

 " it can hardly be doubted that the numerous reports that we 

 have had from time to time, though many of them perhaps are 

 not very well authenticated, are sufficient to show that some 

 undescribed gigantic ophidian or sea creature still remains to be 

 identified." 



We are sorry to see at p. 59 a reference to the Toucan in 

 India. The Hornbill there is generally so called, but the mistake 

 should never be printed. 



