494 Letters, Announcements, &;€. 



(theu unique) type specimen in question, before its trans- 

 mission to Philadelphia, thought the opportunity of describing 

 a new Paradise-bird, and at the same time of promulgating 

 his republican sympathies, too good to be lost, and in spite 

 of the injunctions of the owner of the specimen, inserted the 

 name " respuhlica," with a short diagnosis (certainly erro- 

 neous, and probably drawn up from recollection), in a foot- 

 note to a paper which he was at the time engaged upon for 

 the ' Comptes Rendus/ It is certainly singular that another 

 Paradise-bird should have been subsequently discovered that 

 fits Bonaparte's diagnosis ; bu.t that does not justify the trans- 

 ference of the name to a species for which it was not intended. 

 Indeed, under any circumstances, Bonaparte's Lophorina 

 (sive D'qjhyllodes) respublica should be rejected for insufficient 

 definition. It cannot be too often repeated that the. term to 

 be adopted as the permanent designation of a species should 

 not be a subject of conjecture, or even of disputed evidence, 

 but the first term that is certainly applicable to if^. Were 

 this wholesome rule adhered to more strictly, we should cease 

 to be perplexed by such startling changes in our ordinary 

 nomenclature as have lately been suggested to us from several 

 quarters. 



P. L. SCLATER. 



In the 3rd number of ' Der zoologische Garten ' for the 

 present year (p. 213) Dr. F. Briiggemann gives a short account 

 of a very fine new species of Polyplectron, recently discovered 

 by Dr. G. Fischer in theinterior of Borneo, which he proposed 

 to call P. schleiermacheri. It is nearest to P. bicalcaratum, 

 but, as we can testify from personal observation, very markedly 

 distinct. Two skins of this fine new bird have been lately 

 received by the Darmstadt Museum. When we think of this 

 and Lobiopliasis, it becomes evident that there is still much 

 to be done by the naturalist in the interior of Borneo. 



* Cf. ' Stricklandiau ('ode of Zoological Nomenclature,' sect. 11 (p. lo 

 of edition of 1803). 



