Review of Dr. Finsch'if ' Die Papayeien.' 285 



Gray's list of the Psittacidoi (1859, pp. .20, 21), P. bengalensis 

 aud P. rosa, were nothing but phases of the plumage of the 

 Nipaul bird. 



We next come upon another illustration of Mr. Hume's logi- 

 cal obliquity. " We are told that ' Alas ! the Indian ornitholo- 

 gists give us no satisfactory answer to many of the most dif- 

 ficult questions. Jerdon only says, that the female has a 

 blue head and that the young are green' '' (/. c. p. 1 6) . '^ Alas ! " 

 is Mr. Hume's rendering of the German word " leider," and, 

 with the note of exclamation introduced by Mr. Hume, helps 

 to give the passage an air of contemptuous pity which is not 

 in the original German. It is therefore necessary to quote 

 Dr. Finsch's own words : — " Leider geben uns die indischen 

 Ornithologen iiber viele derartige schwierige Fragen nicht die 

 gewiinschte Auskunft" (Papag. ii. p. 47). " Unfortunately 

 the Indian ornithologists do not give us the wished-for infor- 

 mation on many of the difficult questions of that class " is a 

 fair translation of the passage ; and Dr. Finsch's observation, 

 being strictly accurate when he wrote, can only be met by 

 Mr. Hume as follows, for he cannot quote the writings 

 of a single author previous to 1868 : — '' Does he want ' a full, 

 true, and particular account ' from one who has taken scores 

 oipurpureus from their nest-holes and reared them by dozens ? 

 Let Captain Hutton speak ; his synonymy is faulty, he is no 

 cabinet naturalist, but he knows the birds as well as he does 

 his own children " {t. c. pp. 16, 17) . And then, as usual, fol- 

 lows an extract from Captain Hutton's paper (Str. Feath. i. 

 p. 344) published five years after the publication of Dr. Finsch's 

 work, but without the date and reference now given being 

 quoted. Indeed the information the absence of which Dr. 

 Finsch most justly regretted in 1868, is only supplied in 1873, 

 and then in 1874 flung in his teeth for having wished for it. 

 Further notice of Mr. Hume's criticisms in connexion with 

 this species might be omitted did they not comprise the fol- 

 lowing gross personal insult to Dr. Finsch :— " Orange yellow 

 wing-spot birds are common enough, and if he will pay the 

 postage and return the specimen, I will send him one to 

 look at" [i.e. p. 17). To the word ''return," printed in 



SER. III. VOL. IV. X 



