390 Letters, Announcements, i^c. 



Mr. Blanford inadvertently makes a slip when he states 

 (p. 253) that "the fragments of two specimens of Batra- 

 chostomus, from Darjeeling, briefly described by Mr. Blyth 

 in 1849 (J.A. S.B. xviii. p. 806), were at first referred by 

 him to B. affinis ; but subsequently, in his ' Catalogue of the 

 Birds in the Museum of the Asiatic Society,' p. 31, he as- 

 cribed them to ' a nearly allied but distinct species.' " The 

 facts are exactly the reverse. Mr. Blyth announced the 

 receipt of the fragments from Darjeeling and his opinion, 

 above quoted, first, and not " subsequently," in the Cata- 

 logue. Afterwards, in his " Supplemental note to the Catalogue 

 of the Birds in the Asiatic Society's Museum " (J. A. S. B. 

 1849, p. 806. no. 405, paper quoted by Mr. Blanford), no. 405, 

 being the number under which B. affinis stands in the ' Cata- 

 logue,' Mr. Blyth published his matured opinion along with 

 a description of the two specimens. His words are, "two 

 specimens of what we now consider to be the young of 

 this species "" {B. affinis) . If this were not a slip, Mr. Blan- 

 ford's version would deprive me of the support of one of the 

 many facts which led me to the inference that B. castaneus, 

 Hume, =B. affinis, Blyth. Mr. Blyth's last-published opinion 

 about B. affinis is contained in a footnote to page 83 (B, 

 Burma) , where he alludes to B. affinis being " probably Oto- 

 thrix hodgsoni, G. R. Gray, if the two really diff'er." Ma- 

 laccan examples of B. affinis, in grey and brown spotted 

 dress, are difficult to distinguish from the type of 0. hodg- 

 soni-, but I did not venture to identify (B. Burma, no. 162) 

 Gray's species with B. affinis and B. castaneus in the face of 

 Mr. Hume's positive statement (Str. F. ii. p. 349) that " Mr. 

 Hodgson's bird "" (type of O. hodgsoni) " was certainly an 

 adult female by dissection ;" for Lieutenant W. Ramsay (B. 

 Burma, no. 162) had determined by dissection that the sex 

 of a species of Batrachostomus, ex Burma, hardly diff'ering 

 from O. hodgsoni, was a male. This statement Mr. Hume 

 has now reduced to " It is true, when I formerly wrote, I 

 thought it (relying upon what Hodgson recorded) probable 

 that hodgsoni was the female ^^ (Str. F. iv. p. 378). The 

 certainty of the fact arrived at by Mr. Hodgson after dis- 

 section, as first stated by Mr. Hume, being thus minimized 



