There are 13 known species of fossil elephants, 9 of which occur in India. The Elephas ganesa of the Siwalik Hills has tusks 10i feet long. It is one of the largest of the fossil elephants. The great sabre - toothed tiger, Machairodus latidens, which has been found in Europe and S. America, occurs also in the Upper Miocene fresh-water limestones of the Siwalik Hills of India. The Mastodon Perimensis and extinct Dinotherium have been found in Europe and in Perim Island iu the Gulf of Cambay. The three toed iniocene ancestor of the horse, one of the Ungulata or hoofed animals, Hipparion or Hippotherium, occurs fossil in the Siwalik Hills, and also extinct species of hippopotamus. Two species of pigs, now extinct, the Sus giganteus and Sus hysudricus, have been found in India; and extinct camels in the Siwalik.
The Siwalik Hills of India and the rocks of China have also furnished the huge Sivatherium ; and from there also have been obtained two species of Chalicotherium, also fossil oxen and antelopes ; while of fossil birds the Siwalik have furnished the Struthio Asiaticus and Argala Falconeri. Remains of many species of alligators, crocodiles, and gavials have been found iu the tertiary rocks of India. The extinct Colossochelys atlas, from the Siwalik Hills, is one of several gigantic land tortoises which still inhabit islands of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Of all these, Hindu litera ture makes no mention, though these religionists utilize, medicinally and in the arts, many minerals and plants and animals ; and they reverence the cow, and even worship the Hanurnan monkey, Presbytis entellus, the cobra snake, and the tulsi plant.
The Chinese students of natural history have been fairly successful in their botanical writings. They can show the Nanfang-tsao-mu-Chnang, by Ki-han, so early as the time of the Tsin dynasty, A.D. and since then, the Pun-tsao of Li Shi Chin, A.D. 1590, and many others, have appeared. But in other branches of natural science they entertain very childish notions. Remusat, writing in 1828, mentioned that one of the strangest errors among them relates to the transformation of beings into each other. This delusion has arisen from their following popular fallacies, and learned absurdities have been added to puerile prejudices. That which the vulgar have believed, the learned have attempted to explain. They point to fossils as proving that animate beings can become inanimate ; they be lieve that ice, if kept long in the earth, becomes rock-crystal ; that lead, in time, becomes cinnabar, tin, and silver ; that in spring the rat changes to a quail, and in the eighth month, from a quail to a rat.
• Even, however, to those who make natural history a life's study, the multitude of current synonyms offer hindrances to the acquisition of all branches of this science. The Bengal leopard cat, for instance, has been called the Felis Ben galensis by Desmoulins, F. Sumatrana by Hors field, the F. Javanensis by Jerdon and Horafield,
P. minuta by Temminck, F. undulata by Schinz, F. Nepalensis and F. pardichrous by Hodgson ; and Dr. Gray gave it four names, Leopardus Chinensis, L. Reevesii, L. Elliotti, and Chaus servalinus.
Another instance, amongst birds, the bearded eagle, Gypaetos barbatus, has had twelve names given to it, in the genera falco, gypaetos, phene, and vultur. The Scops aldrovandi, Ray, has eleven synonyms, of the genera ephialtes, otus, scops, and strix. Herodias bubulcus has twelve specific syno nyms. Leptoptilos argala, the great adjutant bird of Europeans, has six synonyms, of the genera ardea, argala, ciconea, and leptoptilos.
Among reptiles, the Crocodilus palustris has five synonyms. Euprepes rufescens, the common Indian skink, has nine synonyms of the genera euprepes, lacerta, plestrodon, scincus, and tiliqua. Bungarns czerulius has eight.
In Pfeiffer's monograph of the Helicidze, family containing 17 genera, no less than 330 generic synonyms are enumerated. One very common estuary shell of Europe has been named Arenaria plana by Megerle, Lutraria compressa by Lamarck, Mactra Listeri by many authors, Mya Hispanica by Chemnitz, Scrobicularia piperata by Gmelin, Trigonella plana by Da Costa, and Venus borealis by Pennant.
Similarly with most fishes. The small barbel of India has 11 synonyms,—Barbus caudimar ginatus;deliciosus, Duvaucelli, gardonides, sarana, and Russellii, Cyprinus kunnamoo, M'Clellandi, and sarana, Systomus chrysostomus and immacu latus ; and to curtail this part of the subject, it must suffice to say that the synonyms of plants are even more numerous.
This multiplication of names has often resulted from a genus or species being described by more than one person, in ignorance of each other's labours ; but occasionally has occurred from the desire of giving new designations to old and familiar objects, and from fresh views as to classification. In botany, with the knowledge of new lands and their varied flora, the numbers of names may be expected to grow indefinitely. At the present time it may be thought a safe estimate to say that there are probably not less than half a million distinct species of vegetable organisms on land and in the water dispersed over the globe. The plants of India alone are reckoned at 12,000 to 13,000.
The oriental region, for its fauna, has been arranged into four sub-regions, viz. Hindustan, Ceylon and South India, the Himalayan or Judo Chinese sub-region, and hido-Malaya.
Mr. W. T. Blanford, in the Bengal Asiatic Society's Journal for 1881, has given the follow ing estimate of the land and fresh-water animals in British India, Baluchistan, and the Mergui Archi pelago : a. Vertcbrata. Carnivore, . 75 405 Mammals, viz.— Cetacea, . . . . 23 Quadrumana, . . . 23 Rodentia, . . 93 Lemures, . . 3 Ungulata, . 47 Cheiroptera, . . . SOI Sirenia, 1 Insectivore, . . . 55I Edentata, . . . 3