278 ON ME. ALLAN HmiE'S EEVEEW OF [1874. 



harrow. "Here, according to my views, Dr. Finsch has combined two distinct species. In the 

 one, which I will call j)nrpurens. Mull* (Dr. Finsch will set mef right, doubtless, about the 

 synonymy)," etc. : then descriptions of the two species and their differentiating characters are 

 fully given, wound up with " I do not entertain the smallest doubt that Dr. Finsch is in error 

 in uniting these two forms . . . ." {t. c. pp. 15, 16). From this it might fairly be presumed that 

 Dr. Finsch in or before 1868 had heard of there being two species, those alluded to by 

 Mr. Hume, but had declined recognizing them as distinct. Nothing of the sort. Their existence 

 was known to no one at the time ; and Dr. Finsch adopted the published statements of Jerdon and 

 Blyth, neither of whom then ever suspected that two closely allied geographical races were being 

 confoimded under one title. The fact was, however, first discovered by Mr. Gould, and first 

 made known by Mr. Blyth in 1870. '■'■ Palwornis rosa. Some time ago Mr. Gould called my 

 attention to two races confounded under this name, which are evidently distinct," etc. (Blyth, 

 Ibis, 1870, p. 162). On Jerdon's return to England I showed to him skins of the two forms, 

 and he at once admitted that they might fairly be considered as belonging to two species ; and 

 in 1872 (Ibis, (3) ii. p. 6) he published, in a supplementary note to the 'Birds of India,' his 

 concurrence with Blyth's opinion. " My views " bad therefore been long before held by Gould, 

 Blyth, Jerdon, and other European naturalists ; but they were first promulgated, and by Blyth, 

 two years after the publishing date of ' Die Papageien.' The two supposed species of the late 

 Ibis, 1S74, Mr. Gray's list of the Psittacidw (1859, pp. 20, 21), P. hengalensis and P. rosa, were nothing 

 but phases of the plumage of the Nepal bird. 



We next come upon another illustration of Mr. Hume's logical obliquity. " We are told 

 that ' Alas ! the Indian ornithologists give us no satisfactory answer to many of the most difficult 

 questions. Jerdon only says, that the female has a blue head and that the young are green 

 [t. c. p. 16). "Alas!" is Mr. Hume's rendering of the German word " leider," and, with the 

 note of exclamation introduced by Mr. Hume, helps to give the passage an air of contemptuous 

 pity which is not in the original German. It is therefore necessary to quote Dr. Finsch's own 

 words : — ^" Leider geben uns die indischen Ornithologen iiber viele derartige schwierige Fragen 

 nicht die gewiinschte Auskunft" (Papag. ii. p. 47). "Unfortunately the Indian ornithologists 

 do not give us the wished-for information on many of the difficult questions of that class " is a 

 fair translation of the passage ; and Dr. Finsch's observation, being strictly accurate when he 

 wrote, can only be met by Mr. Hume as follows, for he cannot quote the writings of a single 

 author previous to 1868 : — "Does he want ' a full, true, and particular account ' from one who 

 has taken scores of purjpureus from their nest-holes and reared them by dozens \ Let Captain 

 Hutton speak ; his synonymy is faulty, he is no cabinet naturalist, but he knows the birds as 

 well as he does his own children " [t. c. pp. 16, 17). And then, as usual, follows an extract from 

 Captain Hutton's paper (Str. Feath. i. p. 344) published five years after the publication of 

 Dr. Finsch's work, but without the date and reference now given being quoted. Indeed the 

 information the absence of which Dr. Finsch most justly regretted in 1868, is only supplied in 

 1873, and then in 1874 flung in his teeth for having wished for it. 



* Sk. 



t Or rather the late G. 11. Gray (Haud-list, no. S054), who in his turn got the title from Cassia (P. Ac. N. Sc. 

 rhiladelphia, 1864, p. 230). 



