President's Address. 
50 
[Feb. 
many years will not elapse before a complete hand-book of the Flora of 
British India and its dependencies will be completed. 
Kurz’s ‘ Forest Flora of Burma,’ the last work of its lamented author, 
although dated 1877, only appeared at the commencement of 1878. It 
consists of two octavo volumes, and contains descriptions of all the woody 
plants, i. e., trees and shrubs, about 2000 in number, hitherto detected in 
British Burma. Any criticism of this work is of course beyond my power, 
but it is easy for any one to recognize the very great amount of labour 
expended on its production, and I am assured, by both forest officers and 
botanists, that it is a most valuable addition to the botanical literature of 
India. 
In zoology the field is so wide, and the observations so scattered, that 
it is difficult to select the particular points of importance. One of the 
most important works published during the past year is the British Museum 
Catalogue of Ghiroptera, written by one of our members and a frequent 
contributor to our Journal, Mr. G-. E. Dobson. The descriptions of Asia¬ 
tic bats are copied from the author’s Monograph of Asiatic Ohiroptera, 
published by the Trustees of the Indian Museum two years ago. The effect 
of Mr. Dobson’s studies of bats has been simply to render the mammalian 
order of which, previously, the least information existed, one of the best 
known amongst the smaller and more obscure sub-divisions of the class, 
and to place the study of the Cliiroptera, at all events so far as generic and 
specific distinctions and geographical distribution are concerned, considera¬ 
bly in advance of such orders as Podentia and Insectivora. The number 
of species of bats known to exist is 400 : of these no less than 122 are 
Asiatic, and as the species in tropical and subtropical climates vastly exceed 
in number those found in temperate countries, it is not surprising to learn 
that, of these 122, a large proportion are found in some part of the territo¬ 
ries belonging to British India, no less than 69 species being enumerated 
within these limits. In Dr. Jordon’s Mammals of India, published in 1869, 
the number of species of bats noticed was 55, not including purely Burmese 
forms. This, however, conveys an inaccurate idea of the additions made 
by Dr. Dobson, for many of the supposed species noted by Dr. Jerdon 
were merely varieties, differing in colouration alone. 
Birds have, as usual, attracted far more attention than any other class 
of animals, vertebrate or invertebrate, and foremost amongst the publica¬ 
tions devoted to them must be placed Mr. Hume’s Journal of Ornithology 
for India and its dependencies, which continues to appear, under the title 
of 1 Stray Feathers.’ By far the greater portion of this periodical is from 
the pen of its proprietor and editor, and it is difficult to over-estimate the 
energy and hard labour by which alone a work of this kind can be published 
