310 Letters, Extracts from Correspondence, Notices, ifc. 



Mr. Wallace's letters from Ternate (of December 10th, 1800), 

 enclosing the valuable paper already given [antea, p. 383), con- 

 tain several passages which may interest our readers : — 



" I do not like the figure of Semioptera waU.acii : the shoulder- 

 plumes are not sufficiently erected; neither is the contrast of 

 colour between the pure whiteness and the dark silky ash of the 

 back sufficiently marked." 



" The Dutch have just sent out a collector for the Leyden 

 Museum to the Moluccas. He is now at Ternate, and goes to 

 spend two years in Gilolo and Batchian, and then to N. Guinea. 

 He will, of course (having four hunters constantly employed, 

 and not being obliged to make his collecting pay expenses), do 

 much more than I have been able to do ; but I think I have got 

 the cream of it all. His name is Bernstein ; he has resided long 

 in Java, as doctor at a Sanatorium, and tells me he has already 

 sent large collections to Leyden, including the nests and eggs 

 of more than a hundred species of birds ! Are these yet arranged 

 and exhibited ? They must form a most interesting collection *. 



" Many thanks for your list of Parrots f. My collections 

 already furnish many corrections of the localities. Allow me 

 here to make a remark on the constant changes of specific 

 names by yourself and Mr. Gray. It strikes me that, by forcing 

 the law of priority to its extreme limits, you create a complicated 

 synonymy, instead of settling it. Was not that law made to 

 decide among several names already in use — not to introduce 

 diversity where uniformity of nomenclature has hitherto existed ? 

 What is gained by changing Eclectus linnm into E. cardinalis, 

 and Paradisea superba into P. atra, when it is almost certain 

 that such changes will not be generally adopted ? I believe the 

 synonymy of Natural History will never be settled till a tribunal 

 shall be appointed by general assent, from whose decrees there 

 shall be no appeal. It matters absolutely nothing whether a 

 bird has one name or another ; but it is of the utmost importance 

 that it should not have two or three at once. A syuonyraical 

 catalogue, which should be authoritative and final by the general 



* These have been described at length in two articles in Cabanis' 

 'Journal fur Ornithologie,' which we have already noticed (' Ibis,' 1860, 

 pp. 94 & 299). t See P. Z. S. 1860, p. 223. 



