Co? respondence.



43



birds belong. Your argument cuts both ways. Suppose you are a very

rich man and I am only a poor one, it is most unfair that you should be able

to buy birds that I cannot afford to and so get a Medal.


After all, the new Rule is only the outcome of petty spite and

jealousy.


Yours faithfully,


C. D. Farrar.


Sir, —In the two letters which yon kindly forwarded for my

inspection, the Rev. C. D. Farrar brings certain charges against me as

Secretary ; and it seems desirable that his inaccurate statements should be

publicly refuted.


Referring to the new Medal Rule which was published on p. 305 of

our last number, Mr. Farrar (I am writing from memory, having returned

this letter to you) accuses vie of having imposed the Rule on the Society

and says that it is scandalous that one man should be allowed to do this and

that, and much more to the same effect. The Rule was passed by the

Executive Committee; even the thought of it did not originate with me,

though I fully approve of it, and, after reading Mr. Farrar’s letters, see the

necessity for it.


Mr. Farrar objects to a Medal being awarded me for having bred the

Australian Waxbill. He is quite at liberty to object, but his offensive

manner of doing so is inexcusable. He founds his objection on Mr.

Gedney’s statement that these Waxbills “ have been bred by every one who

has tried the experiment, but all the instances recorded have occurred

where the birds were bred in rooms, and as my own experiences are limited

to similar conditions ” etc. etc. Nowall the “recorded” instances are the

partially successful ones of Dr. Russ in Germany, to which I referred at

p. 290. If Mr. Gedney’s “own experiences” had been only partially

successful, he would most certainly have referred to the plumage of the

young birds. He does not state that he bred the species.


Mr. Farrar writes,—“ Mr. Phillipps refused me a Medal because he

said Mr. Wiener said he had bred them (Malabar Mynah); also I was denied

a Medal for breeding Dliyals because Mr. Phillipps said the Zoo had bred

theni. Would any one believe, who knows anything, that the Zoo could

RKAR such birds as Dliyals? and yet I had to sit down under Mr. Phillipps’

dictum ! ”


On these two occasions I was not Secretary. Why then is my name

brought forward any more than that of any other member of the Execu¬

tive ? I do not remember about the Malabar Mynah, but I observe that,

after some years of failure, Mr. Wiener did eventually succeed in rearing

a brood of three. But what has that to do with Mr. Phillipps ! ! ! And

what does Mr. Farrar mean by his expression, relative to the Dhyals, “Mr.

Phillipps said the Zoo had bred them ! ” In the Zoological Society’s



