170 Zoology. 



" General Hardwicke began his collections of illustrations of 

 Asiatic zoology in the last century, and continued them till his 

 final return to this country in 1818. He lost many specimens 

 and the fruit of much labour by three several shipwrecks ; but 

 this, instead of damping his ardour, roused him to fresh exertions, 

 and he was busy up to the time of his death in preparing his 

 collections for publication, the scientific part having been under- 

 taken by Mr. Gray. Among the drawings of fish which he 

 procured, there are some by Major Neeld, others by Major 

 Farquhar, and a considerable number copied from the drawings 

 of Buchanan Hamilton, by that gentleman's consent, and by the 

 same artists whom he employed. This is mentioned because a 

 charge of piracy has been made in the ' Calcutta Journal ' 

 against General Hardwicke, who was however too high-minded to 

 appropriate to himself the labours of others without due acknow- 

 ledgement ; and the careful references in his own writing on the 

 drawings of Buchanan Hamilton show that he had no intention 

 of claiming anything that belonged to that distinguished natu- 

 ralist. The General bequeathed his specimens, and the whole 

 of his collections of drawings, amounting to twenty folio volumes, 

 to the British Museum, and also set apart a sum of money to 

 defray the expenses of publishing the scientific description of 

 them. His collections have been deposited, as he wished, in the 

 national institution, but his intentions respecting the publication 

 have been entirely frustrated by a Chancery suit which was 

 instituted soon after his death." 



The great collections presented by Mr. Bryan Hodgson, from 

 Nepal, Sikhim and Tibet, marked an era in the history of the 

 Zoological Department ; but the scientific value of this collection 

 depended mainly upon the series of coloured drawings of the birds 

 executed by native artists, while the skins from which the 

 drawings had been taken were apparently of secondary account, 

 and were very roughly prepared, with a label generally tied 

 round the neck of the specimen, bearing a number which corre- 

 sponded with the coloured picture of the species. The Hodgson 

 donation dealt mainly with the birds of the Himalayas, with 

 the exception of one collection of skins from Behar ; and for 

 many years the Museum lacked a representative series from the 

 greatest dependency of the Empire. 



Thanks to the donations of Mr. Allan Hume, C.B., Colonel 

 Wardlaw Ramsay, Dr. F. D. Godman aud Mr. Osbert Salvin, 

 Mr. Radcliffe Saunders, and the bequests of Mr. Henry Seebohm 



