274 Lord Walden on Mr. Allan Hume's 



written in either English, German, or French — it being over- 

 looked that while naturalists of all nations might and do 

 agree to employ Latin as a common medium of thought-ex- 

 change, it is most improbable that they would consent to 

 forego using their own language and to adopt that,of some 

 rival nation. The Swedes, Norwegians, Danes, Russians, 

 Dutch, Hungarians, Poles, Czechs, Spaniards, Portuguese, and 

 Italians have all produced and are producing naturalists. 

 Why are they to be condemned to write in English, French, or 

 German? Would Mr. Hume consider it fair, when desirous of 

 making known the discovery of a Dissemuroides dicruri- 

 formis^{\), to be restricted to the use of the Czech, Russian, 

 or Hungarian tongues ? Is not Latin also that language in 

 Avhich descriptions can be rendered with the greatest precision 

 and conciseness? M. Severtzoff^s recent work, 'Turkes- 

 tanskie Sevotnie,'^ is a case in point. It contains descrip- 

 tions of many new species, and is entirely in Russian. It 

 might be argued that M. SevertzoflF should have written in 

 English, French, or German. But perhaps M. SevertzofF 

 may think that " 100 years hence " Russian will be spoken 

 by "500 millions of jieople'^ rather than English. Mr. 

 Hume's proposal cari'ies its o"mi refutation. 



Knowledge of the past and current literature implied, in 

 natural history, by the term ' synonymy ' meets with as little 

 favour from Mr. Hume as every other branch of knowledge 

 in which he is not a proficient. It is even doubtful, judging 

 from his remarks, whether the meaning involved in the term 

 is not somewhat beyond his grasp. A good synonymist, 

 among other things, knows every description of a species, or, 

 in other words, every species that has been described, and 

 consequently the correct geographical range of each species. 

 His statements of facts are therefore more likely to be accurate 

 than those of the illiterate writer. If Mr. Hume were a 

 synonymist he would have spared us many stale facts under 

 the name of " novelties.'^ Nor would he, for example, have 

 recorded {op. cit. i. p. 378. no. 452) that a bird whose range 

 is restricted to South China, Ixus chrysorrhoides, Lafr., occurs 

 * Hume, Str. Feath. i. p. 408. 



