INDIAN CYPRINID^. 



219 



amounting to 150 beautifully executed, and including nearly all the un- 

 published species on which my painters had been so long employed, with 

 the specific names in Buchanan's hand- writing marked under the figures, so as 

 to leave no doubt or difficulty in referring them to corresponding descriptions 

 in the Gangetic Fishes. I am not prepared to state how many unfigured 

 species this interesting collection contains, except in the particular family 

 which is the subject of this paper. Along with these drawings I received inti- 

 mation from Dr. Wallich that two folio volumes of manuscripts and drawings 

 on general zoological subjects by the late Dr. Buchanan still remain at the 

 Gardens. The descriptions alluded to may probably serve as a key to 

 Hardwicke's Illustrations, into wliich 1 perceive several figures of Cypr'midce 

 have been accurately copied except in the colouring, from Buchanan's drawings ; 

 and as no descriptions of the plates of Hardwicke's work have been yet 

 to my knowledge published, the source from whence the figures in question 

 came does not transpire, and there is no allusion to it on the plates ; at any 

 rate it is unfair to General Hardwicke as it is to Dr. Buchanan, and to all 

 who are engaged in pursuits connected with the Natural History of this or any 

 other country, to have the unpublished works of any man shut up for 

 twenty-two years in a library that is not open to the public* 



* Buchanan's Researches regarding the fishes of India commenced on his arrival in the country 

 in 1794, and ended with the publication of the Gangetic Fishes in 1822. Anything that tended to 

 lessen the value of a work that occupied so much of such a life is to be regretted. It is stated in a 

 biographical notice of Buchanan in Chamber's Lives of Scotchmen, that on his departure from India 

 he was deprived by the INIarquis of Hastings of all his extensive drawings and papers relating to 

 every brancli of Natural "^x^iox^, particularly Botany, " although to me/' quoting his own words to the 

 Edinburgh Philosophical Society, " as an individual they were of no value, as I preserve no collections, 

 and have no occasion to convert them into money, but I was merely desirous of seeing them safely 

 deposited in the India House." In deciding tiiat Buchanan's papers should be retained in India, it 

 may be presumed that the object was that they sliould here be rendered more useful to the country 

 than they could be in England. It could scarcely liave occurred to the I\Iarquis of Hastings that 

 these works would be consigned to oblivion and the auilkir in coiiscquonce siiporsoded by his successors. 



