226 
Mr. Blyth’s Commentary 
to be added from the desert territory of the north-west, as also 
from the extreme south of the peninsula, where it may be ex¬ 
pected that some of those will be found to inhabit which at pre¬ 
sent are known only from Ceylon. Indeed the latter are so few 
in number, and those few congeneric in every instance (or at least 
approximately so in the only two slightly exceptional cases*) with 
birds of continental India, that their exclusion from Dr. Jerdon’s 
work must be regretted. In a note to his Introduction (p. xxxix) 
he indeed remarks, “ I would greatly like to have included-all 
British India, from Assam to Tenasserim and Ceylon, in the 
scope of the present work; but I was afraid that this addition 
would have swelled my work to an unwieldy bulk.” To me it 
appears that the great Indo-Chinese subregion, from the valley 
of the Brahmaputra southward, might very well be separately 
treated of; whereas Ceylon is undoubtedly subordinate to the 
special Indian subregion, notwithstanding that a contrary opinion 
has been expressedf. Some thirty to forty species of birds only 
(as specific distinctions are variously admitted, and some of these 
distinctions are very slight) are known to me at present as being- 
peculiar to the island, several being merely specialized insular 
representatives of kindred races—or very near congeners—on 
the mainland, though the limits of this specialization can only 
be arbitrarily traced ; while others are most strongly characterized 
species, the recognition of which must be universally accepted. As 
examples of the former may be mentioned Loriculus coulaci as 
distinguished from L. vemails, Pomatorhinus melanurus from 
P. horsfieldi, Palumbus torringtoni from P. elphinstonii; and 
as examples of the latter may be adduced the Jungle-fowl and 
Spur-fowl of Ceylon (Gallus stanleyi and Galloperdix zeylanensis ), 
* Phcenicophceus , as distinct from Xanclostomus (v. Melias) and Meropixus , 
Bonap. (Comptes Rendus, 1854, xxxviii. p. 58), founded upon a species 
peculiar to Ceylon, but wliicli is barely separable from Rubigula, nobis. 
t Vide Tennent’s ‘ Ceylon ’ (Introduction, p. xxxii, &c.). The prin¬ 
cipal argument relates to the Cingbalese Elephant, which was supposed 
to be identical with that of Sumatra, but not with that of India. I am 
now completely convinced of the specific identity of all living Asiatic 
Elephants (as far as hitherto discovered at least, and it is most improbable 
that another should yet remain to be distinguished) ; and such was the 
matured opinion of the late Dr. Falconer, unquestionably the highest au¬ 
thority for the species of Proboscideans, living or extinct. 
