284 Lord Walden on Mr. Allan Hume's 



of the young (Str. Fcath. i. p. 339) is then quoted, the refer- 

 ence and date 1873 being omitted and the impression left on 

 the reader's mind that something had been said of the young 

 when Dr. Finsch wrote, and that somehow or other he ought 

 to have known it. 



Dr. Finsch, for his account of Paleeornis cyanocephalus 

 (Linn.), is next passed under the harrow. '' Here, according 

 to my views. Dr. Finsch has combined two distinct species. 

 In the one, which I will call purpureus, Mull"^ (Dr. Finsch 

 will set met I'ight, doubtless, about the synonymy),'' etc.: 

 then descriptions of the two species and their differentiating 

 characters are fully given, wound up with " I do not enter- 

 tain the smallest doubt that Dr. Finsch is in error in uniting 

 these two forms . . . ." {t. c. pp. 15, 16). From this it 

 might fairly be presumed that Dr. Finsch in or before 1868 

 had heard of there being two species, those alluded to by 

 Mr. Hume, but had declined recognizing them as distinct. 

 Nothing of the sort. Their existence was known to no one 

 at the time; and Dr. Finsch adopted the published state- 

 ments of Jerdon and Blyth, neither of whom then ever sus- 

 pected that two closely allied geographical races were being 

 confounded under one title. The fact was, however, first dis- 

 covered by Mr. Gould, and first made known by Mr. Blyth 

 in 1870. " Palaornis rosa. Some time ago Mr. Gould called 

 my attention to two races confounded under this name, which 

 are evidently distinct," etc. (Blyth, Ibis, 1870, p. 162). On 

 Jerdon's return to England I showed to him skins of the two 

 forms, and he at once admitted that they might fairly be con- 

 sidered as belonging to two species; and in 1872 (Ibis, (3) ii. 

 p. 6) he published, in a supplementary note to the ' Birds of 

 India,^ his concurrence with Blyth's opinion. " My views " 

 had therefore been long before held by Gould, Blyth, Jerdon, 

 and other European naturalists ; but they were first promul- 

 gated, and by Blyth, two years after the publishing date of 

 ' Die Papageien.' The two supposed species of the late Mr. 



* Sic. 



t Or rather the late Mr. G. R. Gray (Hand-list, no. 8054), who in his 

 turn got the title from Cassin (P. Ac. N. Sc. Philadelphia, 18G4, p. 239). 



