1874.] DE. FINSCH'S 'DIE PAPAGEIEN.' 273 



the old squabble between the belly and the members, and is certainly unworthy of discussion. 

 But 1 venture to maintain that workers in the cause of any science are superior or inferior 

 according to the amount of knowledge possessed by them of their special subject. To be a 

 " trustworthy " field naturalist, who is after all only an observer of a single class of phenomena, 

 he must have acquired, by long and assiduous study, all that has been recorded as observed by 

 former naturalists. He must not only have a thorough knowledge of his own branch of natural 

 history, but he must possess a more than general acquaintance with every other branch. By this 

 means, and this only, will he know what to observe and how to observe. Knowing all that Ibis, 1874, 

 has been written, he will know what species have been described, what problems demand 

 solution, and he will not bore the world with repetitions of well-known facts or records of trisial 

 and useless observations. Another essential quality is that which gives the power of recording 

 with precision and terseness, untainted by an inflated, sententious, and dogmatic egotism, the 

 results of his observations. Such was Dr. Jerdon. If asked to illustrate my meaning by a living 

 standard, I would name Mr. Wallace as the highest. 



" Let the cabinet naturalist stick to his synonyms .... but let him avoid the presumption 

 of disputing and denying the facts stated by admittedly trustworthy members of this latter class " 

 (field workers) " because they happen to run counter to his own theories " (t. c. p. 27). It would 

 be easy to point out the numberless erroneous observations made by field workers, Indian field 

 workers to boot, even with the objects of their observations constantly before their eyes. And 

 are naturalists in Europe (the most of whom, if not all, have been in their day, and are even 

 now, field workers) to be charged with presumption when they " dispute " or " deny " such 

 erroneous observations, or can show an absence of conclusive evidence 1 Why, the healthy 

 progress of science depends on antagonism ; it is by the flails of disputation that the truth is 

 threshed out. But it is new to hear that a naturalist is open to imputations of presumption 

 when he " disputes or denies " the accuracy of other men's observations. May we not, without 

 being chargeable with flattery, venture to assume that Mr. Hume falls within his own definition 

 of a trustworthy field naturalist ; and yet was he not the discoverer, describer, and namer of 

 Niltava leucotis (Ibis, 1870, p. 144)'? An achievement almost vying in brilliancy with that of 

 the discoverer of Sparaetes cristata. Should a cabinet naturalist be debarred from disputing 

 such an observation if he found it "ran counter to his own theories" of structure] In this 

 instance cabinet naturalists wei'e saved from the disagreeable duty ; for I believe Mr. Hume 

 subsequently suggested that he had described from a made-up specimen (Zool. Rec. vii. p. 50). 

 But ornithologists generally owe a deep debt of gratitude to Mr. Brooks for liaving first shown in Ibis, 1874, 

 detail, through the Editor of ' The Ibis ' (1871, p. 445, note), the rtal nature of this interesting P- - '• 

 species. Otherwise it might, for many years, if not for ever, have rf-mained an object of hopeless 

 longing to the Indian field ornithologist, and a perplexing puzzle u "^^s less fortunate brethren 

 the cabinet naturalists of the world. But as this useful information nas been "paraded" only 

 "in what is supposed to be Latin" and without " a full, sound, sufficient English or German" 

 description, below is given * a translation for the benefit of the " 500 millions of people " 



* " A manufactured bird, bodj' of the Bufous-bellied Fairy hlue-chat, head of the Indian grey-tit " (Ibis, I. c). Dr. 

 Finsch, although stigmatized a " pseudo-classicist " by Mr. Hume {t. c. p. 4), is doubtless competent to supply " a full, 

 Bound, sufficient German " description, if recjuired. 



