The Fauna of British India, Including Ceylon and Burma

The series was started sometime in 1881 after a letter had been sent to the Secretary of State for India signed by Charles Darwin, Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker and other "eminent men of science" forwarded by P.L.Sclater to R.H.

In the volume on the mammals, Blanford notes: The need for new and revised descriptive works had, for some years before 1881, been felt and discussed amongst naturalists in India, but the attention of the Government was, I believe, first called to the matter by a memorial dated Sept. 15th of that year, prepared by Mr. P. L. Sclater, the well-known Secretary of the Zoological Society, signed by Mr. Charles Darwin, Sir J. Hooker, Professor Huxley, Sir J. Lubbock, Prof. W. H. Flower, and by Mr. Sclater himself, and presented to the Secretary of State for India.

It is scarcely necessary to add that to the recommendation of men so highly respected and so well known in the world of Science the publication of the present Fauna of British India is greatly due, and that Mr. Sclater is entitled to the thanks of all interested in the Zoology of India for the important part he took in the transaction.

I can only express a hope that the present series as a whole may be worthy of the distinguished support to which, in so great a degree, it owes its origin.The idea was to cover initially the vertebrates, taking seven volumes, and this was followed by a proposal to cover the invertebrates in about 15 to 20 volumes and projected to cost £11,250 to £15,000.

Following Shipley's death in 1927, Lieutenant Colonel John Stephenson, formerly of the Indian Medical Service was appointed editor in May 1928.