APPENDIX A. 503 



likely to be superseded very shortly, we belie^■e, by a new work ou tbe subject by 

 Mr. K. Dates." Now were my esteemed friend Mr. Blyth alive, I know be would 

 be tbe first to disclaim all approval of tbis invidious praise, and the dishonesty 

 involved, in the suppression iu tlic above passage of even an allusion to Mr. Hume's 

 work, Stray Feathers, which will ever stand as a miue of information, wlierein the 

 results of all the omitholosieal work done in Burma since Blyth's death are from 

 time to time recorded. Here, again, tbe ornithological reader may smile, at tlie 

 malice of an anonymous critic, but tbe omission, so far as tbe general reader is 

 concerned, is an act of dishonesty injuriously directed against Mr. Hume. 



Mr. Hume's name is first alluded to by the Reviewer as follows: " But about tliis 

 time L(U-d Tweeddale's sympathies were excited by an unprovoked attack made by 

 Mr. Allan Hume, an In<lian amateur ornithologist, upon Dr. Finseh, one of the most 

 learned and accomplished naturalists of the Fatherland." Now of all Indian ornitho- 

 logists whom tlio reviewer mentions by name, and of the far larger number likewise of 

 whom no mention is made, but two are not ^amateurs.'' To single out therefore 

 Mr. Hume, and specially allude to him as an ' amateur,' can otdy be done to insinuate 

 that he is an amateur in some other sense than bis colleagues, or in a word a bungler 

 or some such term of disparagement. Tliis I bold is a sut/ffestio falni, as I understand 

 tbe meaning of that phrase. Alluding to Dr. Finseh' s work on Parrots, the Reviewer 

 goes on : "In 1874, i.e. six years after tbe publication of the second volume of the 

 ' Monograph,' Mr. Hume took occasion to write a review of it, and jn'ojitinf; by tbe 

 knowledge of the Indian species, which he had in tbe meantime acquired, and by 

 some alleged inaccuracies of Dr. Finseh regarding them, proceeded to condemn the 

 wliole work in unmeasured terms, accusing tbe author of wanton and perverse 

 ignorance, and gratuitous cn-ors." Now the gist of this charge I bold to be absolutely 

 false. In the opening' sentence of his review of " Die Papageien," Mr. Hume states 

 that it was but recently that the work luid come into his hands, and on tlie same page 

 stands the following estimate of Dr. Finseh' s work, an estimate no one would possibly 

 suspect Mr. Hume of forming who had nothing to guide him but tbe garliled indica- 

 tions of the spiteful Reviewer: "As an Index of synonyms and a work of reference 

 in regard to nomenclature. Die Papageien will always bo most valuable. The 

 minute and careful measurements and descriptions of every species, merit our cordial 

 acknowledgment, whilst the industry and erudition, which has characterized Dr. 

 Finsch's researches into all that has been recorded in regard to tliis fasdnating 

 family, compel our admiration, even if it excites a sadder feeling when we consider 

 Iww ho has utilized the materials he has thus accumulated." 



With what decency can the writer of the above be charged with condemning 

 "the whole work in unmeasured terms"? 



What Mr. Hume ilid condemn with a righteous warmth, which no man need 

 be ashamed to exhibit, may be gathered fi-om the sentences immediately following 

 the one quoted above. 



" I have only, as already stated, scrutinized closely his treatment of the single 

 well-known genus Palaoniis ; but this discloses an amount of error scarcely credible 

 in such a work. Error, too, entirely gratuitous and created by the author himself, 

 who never, probably, having seen a single wild bird belonging to the genus, chooses 

 on hyijotbetical, and as a matter of fact, utterly untenable grounds, to disregard, 

 nay, to pooh-pooh contemptuously, the recorded experience of men like Jerdon and 

 Blyth, who for a long series of years observed the free living birds, shot and dis- 

 sected them, and knew to a certainty, beyond all possibility of question, the facts 

 that they stated. We are all liable to error, l)ut for a cabinet naturalist, on the 

 strengtli of half a dozen wrongly-soxed skins in some museum, to take upon himself 

 to contradict the definite statements of trustworthy field-naturalists like those above 

 referred to, in regard to matters of which he can personally know nothing, appears 

 to me to indicate a tone of thought incompatible with the philosophical investigation 

 of any branch of physical science." 



Stray l''u;itbcr.s, vol. ii. page 1. 



