M. Belangers Collections. 



89 



are going to speak, and to assign to them that place which 

 they are destined to occupy, in the vast edifice of Zoology. 

 With regard to the animals of India however, we should 

 remark that for many years past, this department of 

 Natural History has been so much enriched by the travels 

 of Duvaucel, M. Diard, and of Sir Stamford Raffles, and by 

 those of Leschenault, Reinwardt, Kuhl, and Van Hasselt, 

 as would make it an extreme injustice to appreciate the 

 results of a recent journey in these countries, otherwise 

 than by the number of new and important objects collect- 

 ed. In fact, it is the activity of travelling naturalists more 

 than their science that contributes to the value of their 

 collections, for it is seldom that they are able to distinguish 

 those rare species by their organization, the discovery of 

 which conduces to modify the general laws of science ; 

 but science is sustained by their perseverance and their 

 courage, and it is in this point of view particularly that 

 the devotedness of M. Belanger is entitled to our gratitude ; 

 his claims therefore to this sentiment on the part of natural- 

 ists, have been surpassed by few travellers, 



M. Belanger affords in a preface, a rapid outline of those 

 travels by which his own were preceded ; he expresses his 

 gratitude to those Savans who assisted him ; affords the 

 plan according to which the zoological portion of his col- 

 lections were executed ; explains the obstacles to which his 

 researches were exposed in Persia ; and in fact, affords an 

 itinerary of his different explorations in India. 



Less conversant with Zoology than with Botany, he has 

 elsewhere devoted himself exclusively to this last branch 

 of Natural History, and to the historical part of his travels. 

 M. Belanger is associated in the description of animals 

 with many honourable men, who by their previous labours, 

 have given the best guarantee to the public for the value of 

 the additions which M. Belanger's discoveries have made to 

 Natural History. 



N 



4 



