Lettei's, Announcements, l^c. 387 



subochraceum with P. tickelli ; ior, with the greatest respect 

 to the superior knowledge of Mr. Oates^ I am inclined (per- 

 haps from mere editorial partiality) to believe that Mr. Blyth 

 was as likely to know as much^ I will not say more, about 

 the specimen and species he himself had described, than 

 even Mr. Oates, who had never seen it. But if there is an 

 error on my part in referring P. minor, Hume, through P. 

 subochraceum, Swinhoe, to P. tickelli, Blyth, it must be Mr. 

 Blyth^s "dictum/' and not mine, "that will not be readily 

 accepted by those who are conversant with local Indian 

 ornithology." 



Mr. Oates speaks confidently of having seen and shot P. 

 tickelli, Blyth^ on the Pegu bills. Mr. Hume, in his "List 

 of the Birds of Upper Pegu" {op. cit. 1875, p. 119), goes no 

 further than to " suppose " that the only specimen sent to 

 him by Mr. Oates belongs to P. tickelli ; and Mr. Oates (/. c.) 

 remarks that that " specimen agrees pretty well with Blyth^s 

 meagre description." But when it becomes an object to 

 impress on the readers of ' Stray Feathers ' that I, in my 

 capacity of Mr. Blyth^s editor, have arrived " at hasty and, 

 in many cases, erroneous conclusions," then the fact that it 

 was Mr. Blyth, and not I, who identified his own species with 

 one that is notoriously the same as P. minor, is omitted, Mr. 

 Hume^s bare "supposition" becomes a demonstrated fact, 

 and "Blyth's meagre description," with which Mr. Oatcs^s 

 solitary specimen only " agrees pretty well," is considered, 

 along with TickelFs (which is as meagre, and was also before 

 Mr. Oates), "to give us all the really essential particulars of 

 the plumage." 



But, Sir, what will probably more interest you and your 

 readers is, whether I was justified in treating the title of P. 

 minor, Hume (lege minus) , as a synonym of some previously 

 described species. Upon this point there is no doubt ; for I 

 have taken the trouble to again examine the type of P. sub- 

 ochraceum. 



I remain, yours, 



TWEEDDALE. 



Ohislehurst, April 26, 1877. 



