Excerpt from Descriptive Catalogue of the Reptiles of British IndiaMy descriptions of species will be found to vary greatly in length and as regards the amount of detail given; but this is intentional, as my object is not to give an exhaustive description of any species, but merely such a description, and so much detail of its structure, as will enable the student to specifically determine it, my object being the production of a useful working student's handbook, rather than a more preten tious Zoological monograph, which must be the work of some future decade; at the same time I am so conscious of its many shortcomings, that nothing but my urgent sense of the want of some such work emboldens me to come forward with what I cannot but think will be an accept able contribution to brother naturalists in India, interest ed in this branch of natural science, or the class of men as they have been contemptuously described, who are desirous of acquainting themselves with animals.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.