Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 4 (1900).djvu/369

Rh have been made—British India. The author has distinct claims to be ranked among zoologists; his 'Thanatophidia of India' is the result of long, original, and valuable work on the intricate subject of Snake-poisoning; he was the proposer at the Council of the Asiatic Society for an ethnological investigation of the Indian races, which produced Dalton's reports on the different tribes in Bengal; and he projected the idea of the Zoological Gardens at Calcutta, which he subsequently had the satisfaction of seeing fully accomplished.

In the volume as a whole, the reader will not find very much distinctly zoological information, but he will meet with a most entertaining history of his own time, which after all is the period whose story we can appreciate best, for it appertains to the incidents belonging to our own sojourn on the planet, and of these we know most. There is a romance in the past, but a reality in our own lives, and Sir Joseph Fayrer takes us again over the old ground. The Indian Mutiny and the Prince of Wales's visit to India are the connecting links of interest, though perhaps both subjects have already reached the stage of exhaustive record.

The myth of the great Sea-serpent is again before us. The author had corresponded with Lieutenant Forsyth, of H.M.S. 'Osborne,' relative to "a marine creature seen by the officers of that ship not far from Sicily." Sir Joseph is of opinion that "it can hardly be doubted that the numerous reports that we have had from time to time, though many of them perhaps are not very well authenticated, are sufficient to show that some undescribed gigantic ophidian or sea creature still remains to be identified."

We are sorry to see at p. 59 a reference to the Toucan in India. The Hornbill there is generally so called, but the mistake should never be printed.