Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v1.djvu/13

 Economical and Medicinal Botany, these collections embraced only the Zoological productions of the region. The following is an approximative enumeration of the total number of species of the various classes which I obtained:—

The part of the Amazons region where I resided longest being unexplored country to the Naturalist, no less than 8000 of the species here enumerated were new to science, and these are now occupying the busy pens of a number of learned men in different parts of Europe to describe them. The few new mammals have been named by Dr. Gray; the birds by Dr. Sclater; the zoophytes by Dr. Bowerbank; and the more numerous novelties in reptiles and fishes are now in course of publication by Dr. Günther.

A word will perhaps be here in place with reference to what has become of these large collections. It will be an occasion for regret to many Naturalists to learn that a complete set of the species has nowhere been preserved, seeing that this would have formed a fair