296 Lord Waldcn on Mr. Allan Hume's 



what does Colonel Tytler say in 1867? That gentleman 

 resided for some time in the Andamans as governor. He 

 was an accurate observer, and discovered and described many 

 good species. He had all the qualifications insisted on by 

 Mr. Hume as alone entitling a man to deference; for he 

 was not only a field naturalist, but something far higher, an 

 Indian field naturalist. Colonel Tytler described the Anda- 

 man Parrakeet, his P. affinis, thus — " generally like P. ery- 

 throgenys, the red cheek-mark and coloration of which it 

 possesses, but differs constantly in having a black bill" (Ibis, 

 1867, p. 320). Beavan adds, on Colonel Tytler^'s authority, 

 " P. erythrogenys he " (Colonel Tytler) " has seen in all stages, 

 and it always has a red bill'^ (/. c). Nor is this all; Dr. 

 Fiiisch,as above stated, founded his opinion on Herr v. Pelzeln^s 

 description of a '' sexed specimen " of a female in the Vienna 

 Museum, obtained in the Nicobars ''in the flesh ^' by the 

 'Novara^ expedition. Three "sexed" as males, five "sexed" 

 as females, and one specimen, with sex undetermined, came to 

 the Vienna Museum. By what, then, was Dr. Finsch to be 

 guided ? Apart from Colonel Tytler^s opinion, the conclusions 

 of Mr. Blyth drawn from unmarked skins ? or the statement 

 of Hen* V. Pelzeln, who had had the advantage of examining 

 eight marked skins ? Is it not allowable to assume that the 

 zoologists attached to any European or American scientific 

 expedition are capable of correctly determining by dissection 

 the sexes of the specimens they obtain ? But Mr. Hume 

 readily disposes of this, I venture to submit, equitable argu- 

 ment in these words, " on the strength ' of an old female in 

 the Vienna Museum ' (palpably, to us who know the species, 

 an old male)" etc. (/. c. p. 24). Unhappily Dr. Finsch, like 

 most people, at least in Europe, not being gifted with a pro- 

 phetic spirit, was unable to foretell in 1868 what "us who 

 know the species" might know in 1874. 



The same remarks will apply in the main to Mr. Hume^s 

 criticisms of the account given by Dr. Finsch of PalcBornis 

 caniceps, Blyth, the last of the nine good species of the genus 

 within Mr. Hume's acquaintance. This handsome Parrakeet 

 was likewise described from a single skin (much mutilated) 



