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Show 522 MR. O. THOMAS ON THE [May 3, that, the types being in England and the workers on the subject in India, an attempt had to be made to determine the species from the published descriptions, an almost hopeless task. It must, however, be said that other authors have not given in all cases the most perfect descriptions, many of those of Mr. Blyth himself being especially short and unsatisfactory. In all, there have been no less than ninety Indian species described, belonging, in m y opinion, to only nineteen valid species, thus giving an average of more than four synonyms to every species. In writing the present paper I have had the advantage of access to the following materials, which, including as they do the types of the greater part of the described species, may be looked upon as quite unequalled. I. Full series of all the species collected and described by Mr. Hodgson in Nepal, some presented by him direct to the British Museum, others obtained through the India Museum, South Kensington. 2. The types of the Indian species described by the late Dr. J. E. Gray. 3. A most valuable collection of specimens in spirit from all parts of India, numbering about 130 individuals. This was presented by Mr. W . T. Blanford, and collected partly by the donor himself and partly by Mr. Mandelli (Darjiling), Col. St. John (Ajmere), the Rev. S. Fairbank (Ahmednagar), Col. R. H. Beddome (South India), and others. 4. A considerable series of skins lent to me for examination by Mr. Blanford, and similarly collected in all parts of India. 5. The specimens collected by Sir Walter Elliot in the Southern Mahratta country and other parts of South India, including the types of the species described by him. 6. Collections of greater or less extent made by Dr. J. Scully (Gilgit), Captain Hutton (Mussooree), Capt. Pemberton (Bhotan), Dr. Kelaart (Ceylon), Mr. H. Cuming (Ceylon), etc. 7. The collection of drawings of Nepalese species formed by Mr. Hodgson, and lent to me by this Society, with manuscript notes appended to nearly all of them. These notes are hereafter frequently referred to. 8. A collection of about 50 spirit specimens from various parts of India; presented to the British Museum by the Trustees of the Calcutta Museum1. Altogether I have examined about 450 Indian specimens. It will be seen by the asterisks prefixed to the names in the synonymy that, of the nineteen good species allowed here, we have the types of no less than thirteen, besides the types of all the four subspecies or 1 This collection, kindly sent by Dr. Anderson, only arrived while the present paper was in the press; but it has nevertheless been of considerable service to m e in confirming m y results, the specimens being all named by Dr. Anderson, and being therefore very useful in helping the identification of those species of which the types are at Calcutta. The letter accompanying this collection is quoted in footnotes in several places below. |