NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 
The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma. Birds. 
Vol. IV. By W. T. Buanrorp, F.R.S. Taylor & Francis. 
1898. 
Tue description of the vertebrate animals of British India, 
in eight volumes, is—by this concluding and fourth volume on 
birds—now completed. India has not only been the training- 
ground for our soldiers, but has been an area—and long will be— 
productive of the best traditions in zoology and zoologists. We 
need not recapitulate the well-known names that were made in 
India and have become household words in zoology, and which, 
with perhaps the exception of Ferdinand Sloliczka, have been 
those of our own countrymen; nor is it necessary to recall the 
many instances in which the first zoological inspiration was 
received in that torrid clime which one usually leaves, but which 
one never forgets. Again, its field naturalists, or in other words 
its sportsmen, have always been renowned and will continue to 
exist; in fact, our Indian Empire is a zoological influence from 
which few sympathetic spirits have escaped. 
In the present work the number of Indian birds regarded as 
distinct species is estimated as 1626, which fairly agrees with 
Hume’s enumeration in his ‘ Catalogue’ of 1879, which reached 
a nett total of 1608; and perhaps this expresses a somewhat 
synthetic concord between good authorities, when the personal 
equation of individual discrimination between species and varieties 
is considered. It must also be remembered that of the four 
volumes devoted to Aves in this series, the first and second were 
contributed by Mr. E. W. Oates, and the remaining two by Mr. 
Blanford, so that the general specific consensus of opinion is still 
more marked. Vol IV., now before us, is devoted to the gallina- 
ceous, wading, and swimming birds. 
Ornithological publications such as these are of course pri- 
marily intended for the Indian or Oriental student; they may 
Zool. 4th ser. vol. II., August, 1898. 2B 
