274 ON ME. ALLAN HUME'S EEYIEW OF [1874. 



by whom " 100 years hence " English will be spoken ; and who will then only possess 

 " expurgated editions " of ' The Ibis,' if it " survives," and " ji-oni which all the ' Latin ' has been 

 carefully expunged." 



As previously stated, one of the most serious accusations brought against Dr. Finsch is that 

 of slighting discourtesy to Jerdon, Blyth, and other Indian naturalists. I have carefully read 

 and reread the whole of Dr. Finsch's text, and have been unable to discover a passage that can, 

 unless twisted, be fairly said to support the charge. "Dr. Finsch, a cabinet naturalist, on the 

 strength, mainly, of some mis-sexed specimens in museums, takes on himself to disregard and 

 disbelieve the positive statements of working field naturalists. Most pathetically does he lament 

 our ignorance (he should have spoken for himself, I think, not others I). He says (p. 26) ;" and 

 then follows Dr. Finsch's general remarks commencing with, " Unfortunately we lack almost 

 entirely a thorough observation of the Parrots" (Papag. i. p. 20) — remarks absolutely true when 

 Dr. Finsch wrote, even if applied to the Indian Parrots, and still so of the greater part of the 

 species to this day. Dr. Finsch in the passage quoted uses the word " Parrots " generally and 

 in its widest sense. Mr. Hume, by restricting its meaning to the half dozen or so of species he 

 Ibis, 1874, has seen, dexterously turns Dr. Finsch's general remarks into a reflection on Jerdon. And yet 



^' "' ■ Mr. Hume's tender and disinterested solicitude for Jerdon's reputation does not prevent him thus 

 writing of Jerdon, "that owing to his ill health in later years and his disregard for the 

 literary side of his work " his " merits " " have been greatly vmderrated ;" and, further on, " I 

 admit that his book embodies many grave errors " {t. c. p. 5). His " merits underrated " ! By 

 whom, where ■? Not in Europe, sui-ely not throughout India ! " Disregard for the literary side 

 of his work " ! to be said of a man whose extraordinary acquaintance with the literature of his 

 subject is displayed in all he wrote. Extraordinary in Jerdon, for in his day communication with 

 Em-ope was infrequent and the land was not flooded, as now, with manuals and hand-books 

 whereby the most shallow can attain with small exertion a smattering of facts sufficient to babble 

 about under the name of science. " Grave errors " ! It may be so. I have not detected them. 

 But Mr. Hume says so. Dr. Finsch does not *. Mr. Blyth, with whose conclusions Dr. Finsch 

 is not always in accord, was, while in India, essentially a cabinet naturalist. During the many 

 years of his Indian sojourn he hardly quitted f the four walls of the museum his genius, knowledge, 

 industry, and indomitable energy raised to the highest rank. Of the fourteen species of the genus 

 Palceornis enumerated by Dr. Finsch he knew, previous to 1868, in the wild state, at the most 

 only four — P. torquatus, P. cyanocephalus of Bengal, P. eiipatrius, and P. melanorhynchus. As 

 caged birds he may occasionally have seen two more — P. scMsticeps, and perhaps P. longicaudatus. 

 Let us now take each of the species of the genus Palceornis in the sequence followed by 

 Mr. Hume, and examine into the merits and justness of his criticisms. First comes Paheontis 

 eujHitrius (Linn.)=P. al exattd ri (Lmn.) of Jerdon, Blyth, and the older Indian writers, subdivided 

 Ibis, ]S74, by Mr. Hume in his Review, and for the first time, into three distinct species. Mr. Hume's 



P'~'^' arguments in support of this subdivision have therefore no bearing on Dr. Finsch beyond this, 

 that our German author followed both Blyth and Jerdon and nearly every other Indian naturalist 



* No man, -vrith so long a career, made fewer bad " species " than Dr. Jerdon, proof by itself of tbe knowledge of bis 

 subject. 



t I believe he onlj- made two excursions of any importance — one to the Midnapur jungles and, much later, on account 

 of illness, one to Burma. 



