110 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 



In the Andamans and Nicobars ; the Narrative of a Cruise in the 

 Schooner ' Terrapin,' with Notices of the Islands, their 

 Fauna, Ethnology, dec. By C. Boden Kloss. John 

 Murray. 

 We recently drew the attention of our readers to another 

 volume, by Dr. Alcock, on the zoology of this region, which was 

 almost entirely devoted to the fauna of the Indian Seas ; the 

 present work describes the principal islands in the Bay of 

 Bengal — the Andamans and Nicobars — with a very full account 

 of their human inhabitants, and some scattered information as 

 to other animal life. Although the nearest islands of the 

 Nicobar and Andaman groups are only separated by a distance 

 of eighty miles, the divergence in fauna and flora is most pro- 

 found. In mankind there is not a simple difference of race, but 

 a real distinction in type ; whilst the coconut palm — such an 

 abundant feature of the Nicobars — is, with the exception of the 

 Cocos Islands, absent from the Andamans in a naturally propa- 

 gated condition. We mention these two examples as indicative 

 of what occurs in both faunas, and floras, in numerous other 

 though less marked instances. Even in the Nicobars, the 

 Monkey (Macacus umbrosus) does not extend to a more northerly 

 island than Kachal, and Mr. Kloss remarks on " the absence of 

 this genus from the Andamans," although in a subsequent 

 synopsis of the mammalian fauna of the two groups, as given 

 by Mr. Gerrit S. Miller, M. coininus (evidently a misprint for 

 M. leoninus) is given as inhabiting the South Andaman, though 

 almost certainly introduced. 



Anthropologists will welcome this book ; its photographic 

 illustrations of the Nicobarian inhabitants will alone render it 

 notable to that science. The British Eclipse Expedition which 

 visited Kamorta in 1875 also took some excellent photographs, 

 to which those now provided by Mr. Kloss will prove a valuable 



