286 Lord Walden on Mr. Allan Hume's 



italics, is appended this footnote, with which, I much regret, 

 I must soil these pages by transcribing : — " This is not a 

 matter of course, because a naturalist who begins by appro- 

 priating his neighbour's species, may end by annexing their 

 specimens. As Dr. Finsch would doubtless say 'Facile^ 

 descensus, etc.V" 



Having delivered himself of this magnanimous sentiment, 

 with its playful insinuation of a felonious tendency in Dr. 

 Finsch, a passage which will only escape the indignant repro- 

 bation of all high-minded men, when it escapes observation, 

 INIr. Hume proceeds to discuss Dr. Fiusch's treatment of 

 Palceornis schisticeps, Hodgson. After another offensive 

 personality, a wretched joke about " his sensitive classical 

 nerves!" Mr. Hume quotes and criticises thus: — '' 'Accord- 

 ing to Blyth ' (and he might have added Hodgson who de- 

 scribed the bird, Jerdon, and a dozen others), 'the females 

 are only distinguished by the absence of the red-brown wing 

 spot.' Blyth of course being no authority any more than 

 other Indian ornithologists. Dr. Finsch continues, ' I am 

 much more inclined to conclude that the red-brown spot 

 would appear also in the full plumaged female/ in other words 

 he through his supreme wisdom without having examined a 

 single bird in the flesh, is intuitively better acquainted Avith 

 the state of the ease than skilled practical naturalists who 

 have dissected scores " {t. c. pp. 17, 18) . Then comes in, as a 

 Deus ex machind, the great, frequent dictatorial Egof, with 

 ponderous yet impotent effect. " Let me tell Dr. Finsch, that 

 I personally must have sexed some thirty specimens of this 

 species, and that the following is my experience" (/. c). Of 

 the " experience " which follows, not having been published 

 when Dr. Finsch wrote, it is unnecessary to give more than the 

 first sentence, '' The female always wants the deep maroon red 



* What Dr. Finsch would "doubtless" have said, had he been quoting- 

 Virgil, is given in the errata. 



t It may be here mentioned, as a matter of dry statistical detail, that 

 apart from copious exti'acts from Dr. Finsch and Captain Ilutton, and 

 besides a host of "me's" "we's" "my's" and "us"s,'' the first personal 

 pronoun '' I " occurs in the twenty-eight pages of this review at least one 

 hundred and sixty-six times. 



