an interest in sharing observations led to the founding of the Bombay Natural History Society in 1883. During this era many Indian princes also took to large scale hunting and together with British hunters, many species of wildlife were hunted to near extinction while some species such as the Cheetah became extinct. Paleontology The study of geology was of great interest during the colonial period. Rich coal bearing seams, gold and other minerals became much sought after resources. This led to the formation of the Geological Survey of India, the first superintendent of which was Thomas Oldham (1816–1878). With his interest in fossils, especially after his discovery of Oldhamia, he took considerable interest in the palaeontological aspects of India. He recruited Ferdinand Stoliczka to work on the Jurassic beds of Kutch. The work of this generation of geologists led to globally significant discoveries including support for continental drift and the idea of a Gondwana supercontinent. Birds The study of birds in India during the colonial period began with hunting and it was only later that more careful observations were made. Many civil servants and army officers took an interest in hunting for sport and often made notes on the birds that they shot while some of the more interesting species were skinned and sent back to museums in England for identification. Early studies were made by Major Franklin in 1831 (Proc. Zool. Soc., 1831) followed by Colonel W. H. Sykes with a Catalogue of the Birds of the Bombay Deccan (Proc. Zool. Soc., 1832) and Samuel Tickell with a List of the Birds of Borabhum and Dholbum (Journal. Asiat. Society, 1833). The real identification work was however done back in England. True ornithology began with Thomas C. Jerdon (1811–1872) in southern India and much later Allan Octavian Hume (1829–1912) who built an entire network of ornithologists in India. He also started the first ornithological journal for the region, Stray Feathers, in which he described new species and edited notes from contributors across the region. The large and widespread collection efforts of ornithologists spread around the region were deposited in the British Museum and in 1889, Blanford commented on the importance of the collection for Indian ornithology: The famous names in the ornithology of the Indian subcontinent during this era include Andrew Leith Adams (1827–1882), Edward Blyth (1810–1873), Edward Arthur Butler (1843–1916), Douglas Dewar (1875–1957), N. F. Frome (1899–1982), Hugh Whistler