494 Mr. Swainsons Reply to his Reviewers. 



and to make them a little more moderate in their pretensions 

 and a little less dogmatical and inaccurate in their statements^ 

 the controversy will have accomplished a very great deside- 

 ratum, and fulfilled my intentions. 



Ever, Dear Sir, 



Sincerely yours, 



W. Ogilby. 

 19, Gowei St., Aug. 20th, 1838. 

 Editor of the Magazine of Natural History. 



Art. X. " A Short 'Reply to my Reviewers." By W. Swainson, Esq. 

 A.G.G., F.R.S., H.M.C.P.S., F.L.S., &c. 



Sir, 

 Although my time would, in all probability, be better em- 

 ployed in prosecuting science than in noticing my critics and 

 reviewers, an interval of leisure induces me to deviate from 

 my usual silence. The subjects upon which I shall touch 

 are chiefly contained in your Magazine, and as the following 

 observations in reply will elicit some scientific information, 

 they will not be altogether of a controversial nature. 



In your first volume (p. 489) appears Mr. G. R. Gray's 

 maiden ornithological paper. As this gentleman has person- 

 ally assured me that he had not the least intention of giving 

 offence by the observations therein contained, I shall make 

 no comments on the tone which pervades that paper, but con- 

 fine myself to noticing its scientific contents. In the first 

 place I feel myself obliged to the author for showing that my 

 Malaconotus mollissimus had already been separated from the 

 Cubla of Le Vaillant, by my friend Professor Lichtenstein, in 

 a valuable, but little known German work. Not having a 

 specimen of the Cape species to compare with the Gambian, 

 when writing the description of the latter, I naturally thought 

 they were the same, and hence the mistake arose, a sort of 

 mistake which all of us are liable to, and are falling into al- 

 most daily. I have since procured a specimen of the true 

 Cubla from South Africa, which by no means verifies the ob- 

 servations of Mr. Gray on the difference he states to exist be- 

 tween these two closely-allied species. He observes, among 

 other points, that the gambensis of Lichtenstein is distin- 

 guished from the Cubla of Le Vaillant "by the colour of its 

 wings and back, which are fuscous." Now Le Vaillant ex- 

 pressly states that the male of his Cubla has the " manteau 



