288 Lord Walden 07i Mr. Allan Hume's 



cerning the range of P. schisticeps, his impartial critic is " com- 

 pelled to point out " [t. c. p. 18). Dr. Finsch states in gene- 

 ral terms that it is found " in '' (not " throughout/' as Mr. 

 Hume or his translator of German erroneously renders " im 

 grossten Theile") "the greatest part of the Indian continent ;'' 

 but he correctly enough gives in detail the range as known at 

 the time he wrote. Its range is enormous ; for it extends from 

 Cashmere (Griffiths is said to have observed it at Pushut), 

 along the lower ridges of the Himalayas as far Eastern as As- 

 sam, and from Assam down to Pegu. Still, by some. Dr. 

 Pinsch's general statement might hypercritically be termed 

 erroneous. 



Now follows Palceornis calthropoi, Layard; and the facts 

 connected with its history up to 1868 are few and simple. 

 Pew, because previous to the publishing date of Dr. Pinsch^s 

 work only two naturalists had written about the species, 

 namely Blyth and Layard. Blyth's part was confined to the 

 description, on behalf of Layard, of two skins sent by Layard 

 to Calcutta (J.A. S.B. 1849, p. 800). One of these, with 

 " upper mandible bright coral, with a white tip ; the lower 

 reddish," Blyth determined to be a male ; the other, with 

 " both the mandibles dull coral with white tips,'' he charac- 

 terized as belonging to a female or young male. Later {op. c. 

 1850, p. 234) mention is made by him of the receipt of three 

 more specimens j but not one word is said about the characters 

 whereby the sexes are distinguished, nor are they even de- 

 scribed ; and I cannot find a passage in any of Blyth's writings 

 previous to 1868 where he defines the distinctions ; and I be- 

 lieve this is all Blyth wrote or knew about this purely Ceylon 

 species up to that date. Layard, in his "Notes on the Orni- 

 thology of Ceylon" (Ann. N. H. (2) xiii. p. 263, no. 177), omit- 

 ted all description of the bird, and merely gave an account of its 

 habits. He said nothing whatever about the colouring of the 

 sexes. This author never published previous to 1868 in any 

 scientific work or elsewhere another word about P. calthropee. 

 Nor does Dr. Pinsch appear to have been more successful in 

 his search for information, and he is most particular through- 

 out his admirable and exhaustive work in giving all refer- 



