PEEFACE. 
IX 
was to throw light on the crude representations of the ancient Egyptians, determining 
the species where that was possible. 
The facilities afforded for the study of the materials in our own British Natural 
History Museum, which have been so helpful throughout the progress of this 
work, must not remain unacknowledged. These began under the administration of 
the late Director, and personal friend, Sir William Flower, K.C.B., and they have 
been continued under the present Director and his Staff; and here more especially 
would I express my obligations to Mr. Oldfield Thomas, the Curator of the Mammalian 
Department, who has always been most willing to give access to the specimens 
contained in the National Collection. 
To those who have contributed specimens from Egypt my very best thanks are 
offered; and it is to be hoped that any inadvertent omission in the text of the 
names of donors will be excused because of the difficulties which have attended 
its publication. 
And to the sympathy of all I must appeal for indulgence towards the short¬ 
comings and imperfections unavoidable under the trying circumstances in which this 
book has been produced. 
I prefix to the volume a portrait of the Author, which will pleasingly recall to 
his personal friends a very familiar attitude. 
I have also been advised to append a List of some of the more important works 
that issued from his pen. These reveal a long period of literary activity, concurrent 
with the painstaking performance of his duties to the Government of India, which he 
served from 1865, when he was appointed by the Secretary of State for India to 
organize an Imperial Museum at Calcutta, a labour which he undertook con amove ; 
and the result remains as a lasting memorial to him. 
On two occasions he accompanied Government Expeditions into the then little- 
known regions betwixt Burmah and China, and he proved himself to be an unusually 
