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NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 



A Vertebrate Fauna of the Malay Peninsula — Reptilia and 

 Batrachia. By George A. Boulenger, D.Sc, Ph.D., 

 F.R.S. London : Taylor & Francis. 



The above is the first of a series of volumes descriptive of 

 the Vertebrate Fauna of the Malay Peninsula, published under 

 the authority of the Federated Malay States Government, and 

 edited by H. C. Robinson, Director of Museums in that Depen- 

 dency. It is supplemental to, and designed on the same method 

 as pursued in, the well-known ' Fauna of British India,' and 

 carries on the faunistic work of that publication beyond the 

 confines of the British Indian border to as far south and east as 

 Singapore. This important faunistic contribution to the histories 

 of our colonies has already been followed in some volumes on 

 the ' Fauna of South Africa,' and we may expect the enterprise 

 to be elsewhere carried on, for it has come to stay. Such publi- 

 cations have a world-wide scientific value ; in the Malay Penin- 

 sula they will prove a boon, indeed, to all who are interested in 

 zoology, and we well remember a sojourn there nearly fifty 

 years ago, when Cantor's 'Catalogues' were the principal litera- 

 ture for consultation. 



Dr. Boulenger is particularly entitled to write this contribu- 

 tion, not only on the ground of his wide knowledge of the subject, 

 but also because he did the same service to the ' Fauna of British 

 India.' The two monographs thus become continuous, possess 

 a common classification, and depend on the same high authority. 

 These valuable qualifications will be properly estimated by those 

 workers on zoological distribution who have sometimes on the 

 same subject to consult different writers of diverse views on 

 classification and nomenclature. 



Mr. H. C. Robinson, the Editor, contributes the Preface, and 

 gives a bibliography of the most important memoirs on Malayan 

 herpetology. He probably omitted by accident one written by 

 the late Dr. W. T. Blanford, " On a Collection of Reptiles and 

 Frogs chiefly from Singapore" (Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond. 1881, 

 pp. 215-227). 



