xii Catalogue of Malayan Fishes. 



Mr. Griffith while superintending the Botanic Gardens transferred 

 these drawings to the Library of the Asiatic Society, Bengal. To 

 nearly every Drawing of the Fishes Buchanan Hamilton has in his 

 own hand-writing attached a systematic or vernacular name under 

 which most of the species were subsequently published in his Work 

 upon the Fishes of the Ganges. This is the series of Buchanan Hamil- 

 ton's Zoological Drawings, which Mr. McClelland complains of having 

 been kept closed from public view in the Botanic Gardens, Calcutta, 

 from 1815 to 1838, during twenty-two years subsequent to Buchanan's 

 departure from India. Years have elapsed, and no explanation has 

 been offered to Mr. McClelland's just observations : " Had such an 

 injury to the advancement of information resulted from an oversight 

 in an ordinary public office, the circumstance would excite less sur- 

 prise ; but that the works of naturalists should be so treated in a 

 public Institution expressly intended for the promotion of science, is 

 so unaccountable to me, that I cannot presume to express an opinion 

 on the subject. But as the case stands, perhaps the best remedy that 

 can now be applied in justice to Buchanan, as well as to others who 

 are still engaged in scientific pursuits, would be to give a complete 

 edition of his labours, botanical and zoological, to the public ; at the 

 same time it is right to say that no atonement can now make amends 

 for the injury that has been inflicted on Buchanan as a naturalist, or 

 for the time that has been lost in allowing others to go over unneces- 

 sarily the ground which he investigated, instead of beginning where he 

 left off." (Asiatic Researches, Vol. XIX. Second Part, page 223. 

 Calcutta, 1839.,) 



