276 Lord Waldeu on Mr. Allan Hume's 



serve. Knowing all that has been -written, he will know what 

 species have been described, what problems demand solution, 

 and he will not bore the world with repetitions of well-known 

 facts or records of trivial and useless observations. Another 

 essential quality is that which gives the power of recording 

 with precision and terseness, untainted by an inflated, sen- 

 tentious, and dogmatic egotism, the results of his observations. 

 Such was Dr. Jerdon. If asked to illustrate my meaning by 

 a living standard I would name Mr. Wallace as the highest. 



" Let the cabinet naturalist stick to his synonyms .... 

 but let him avoid the presumption of disputing and denying 

 the facts stated by admittedly trustworthy members of this 

 latter class " (field workers) " because they happen to run 

 counter to his own theories " [t. c. p. 27) . It would be easy to 

 point out the numberless erroneous observations made by field 

 workers, Indian field workers to boot, even with the objects 

 of their observations constantly before their eyes. And are 

 naturalists in Europe (the most of whom, if not all, have been 

 in their day, and are even now, field workers) to be charged 

 with presumption when they " dispute '' or " deny " such 

 erroneous observations, or can show an absence of conclusive 

 evidence ? Why, the healthy progress of science depends on 

 antagonism ; it is by the flails of disputation that the truth 

 is threshed out. But it is new to hear that a naturalist is 

 open to imputations of presumption when he " disputes or 

 denies " the accm'acy of other men's observations. May we not, 

 without being chargeable with flattery, venture to assume that 

 Mr. Hume falls within his own definition of a trustworthy 

 field naturalist ; and yet was he not the discoverer, describer, 

 and namer of Niltava leucotis (Ibis, 1870, p. 144) ? An 

 achievement almost vying in brilliancy with that of the 

 discoverer of Sparactes cristata. Should a cabinet natu- 

 ralist be debarred from disputing such an observation if he 

 found it " ran counter to his own theories " of structure ? 

 In this instance cabinet naturalists were saved from the dis- 

 agreeable duty; for I believe Mr. Hume subsequently sug- 

 gested that he had described from a made-up specimen (Zool. 

 Kec. vii. p. 50) . But ornithologists generally owe a deep debt 



