Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 1 (1877).djvu/143

Rh eastern frontier of the Persian empire, the disputants being virtually the Shah of Persia on the one hand, and the Amir of Afghanistan (in right of certain acquired interest through rebel feudatories) on the other. By the settlement arrived at through this Commission, Persia got the position which is designated as Sistán Proper, while to Afghanistan was allotted the country on the right bank of the river Helmund, and, above a certain point on that stream, all the cultivated land on both banks.

Owing to numerous delays and difficulties which our diplomacy apparently created rather than averted, the labours of the Commissioners were tediously prolonged during several years, and the first volume of the work before us is occupied with narratives of the various journeys necessitated or undertaken, and an account of the observations and researches made en route by the different members of the Staff. It is in fact a kind of Blue Book of the Persian Boundary Commission, and undoubtedly embodies a large amount of valuable information, although of a nature somewhat foreign to the scope of this journal.

The second volume demands a more lengthy notice at our hands. Fortunately for all who are interested in Natural History, there was one amongst the above-named officers, Major O.B. St. John, who was actuated by far higher views than those of an ordinary traveller and sportsman, and, with the aid of a native collector sent from the Indian Museum at Calcutta, he amassed during the years 1869–70–71 no less than 500 specimens of mammals and birds from such hitherto little-known districts as the forests south and west of Shiraz and its vicinity, and also from the hill ranges between Shiráz and Isfahán, from Tehrán and the Elburz mountains, and from the neighbourhood of Resht, near the Caspian. The consequence of this able pioneering was that when a highly trained scientific observer like Mr. Blanford arrived in the country, in 1872, he found the road considerably smoothed for him, from a naturalist's point of view, and indeed the valuable co-operation of Major St. John is most fully acknowledged by him in these pages. These two naturalists then made a journey in company from Gwádor, in Balúchistán, to Shiráz, Isfahán, and Tehrán, and the result of their joint observations and collections, the latter carefully worked out in Europe with the aid of the best public and private museums for comparison and identification, appear in the present volume.