508 Letters, Announcements, H^c. 



printing till his return from China. Tlic name only was 

 printed in a catalogue of the birds of his Ussuri voyage as 

 early as 1870. 



"Accordingly, my name, printed 1870, Taczanowski's de- 

 scription, published in 1873, my application of my name to 

 his description, 1874, and Mr. Swinhoe's description and figure, 

 1875, all apply to the same bird. This shows also the range 

 of the bird in the breeding-season : — Darasun, in Dauria, fe- 

 male and eggs, summer, 1868 {Dyboivsky) ; Ussuri {Prjevalski) , 

 a male, summer, 1868 ; Cliefoo, North China (Swinhoe) y^lay 

 1873." 



This would certainly appear to show that Dr. Severtzoff^s 

 name- for this Crake has priority over mine ; but you have 

 drawn my attention to the fact that the bird had been pre- 

 viously described by me in the Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. ser. 4, 

 xii. p. 376 (Nov. 1873) ; and I now recollect that before leaving 

 Chefoo I sent a note of my novelties to the ' Annals,' and on 

 my return to England, forgetting all about having done so, I 

 wrote an article on the birds met with at Chefoo for ' The 

 Ibis,^ redescribing some of the novelties, without ever refer- 

 ring to what had already been published in the ' Annals.' 

 I can only attribute my forgetfulness to trouble I had to go 

 through at the time, if that be sufficient excuse. I certainly 

 deserve to lose the priority of naming this bird ; but the laws 

 of nomenclature are on my side. A Thrush I described at 

 the same time in the ' Annals ' as Turdus campbelli, I de- 

 scribed again in 'The Ibis' as T. chrysopleurus. Severtzoff 

 now shows me this is T. pelios, Bp. Hemipodius chryso- 

 stomus, also described in the same ' Annals,' p. 375, I have 

 siuce made out to be only the summer plumage of Turnix 

 maculosa, Vieill. Thus the only novelty left to me is Por- 

 zana eooqnis'ita ; and I presume I may claim a right to that. 



Yours &c., 



Robert Swinhoe. 



