508 ON TWO SPECIES OF BATEACHOSTOMIJS. [1877. 



bility, and in the absence of the exact words used by Mr. Hodgson when recording the fact of 

 having dissected the bird (if any such exist), there need be little hesitation in now reframing the 

 synonymy of this species thus: — B. affinis, Bly th.,=Podargus parvulus, Temm., = Otothrix 

 hodffsoni, G. E. Gray, =5. casfaneus, Hume. 



But the key-stone of Mr. Blanford's contention is the statement that the three specimens in 

 Mr. Hume's collection, of what Mr. Blanford identifies with B. affinis (but which I venture to con- 

 tend areB.javensis, apud Blyth,=J?. steUatus=B.[stictoptenis) " have been compared with Blyth's 

 original type in Calcutta." I do not quite gather whether Mr. Blanford himself personally 

 compared Mr. Hume's three specimens with the type of B. affinis, or whether Mr. Blanford 

 accepted the correctness of the identification at second hand. Will Mr. Blanford kindly investi- 

 gate the history of the specimen he alludes to as being Mr. Blyth's type of i?. affinisi Mr. Blyth 

 described the species from' a Malaccan skin obtained through Mr. Frith in 1847. If my 

 own personal knowledge of B.javensis, apud Blyth (dating back, and continued since, some 

 thirty years), and if the published descriptions and remarks of Mr. Blyth did not irresistibly 

 oblige me to doubt the authenticity of the specimen Mr. Blanford (as described by him) accepts 

 as the type of B. affinis, 1 would refrain from asking him to take the trouble of re-examining it. 

 If it be the type specimen of i?. affinis, what is B.javensis, apud Blyth, ex Malacca? for neither 

 B.javensis, Horsf, nor its ally, Podargus cornutus, Temm., occur in Malacca, so far as is at 

 present kno-\\Ti. 



Mr. Blanford further states his opinion that B. -punctatus, Hume, is distinct from 

 B. moniliger, Layard. Specimens of a species oi Batrachostomus, from Travancore, are identified 

 by Mr. Hume with B. moniliger, a species described from a Ceylon example, while 

 B. punctatus, Hume, ex Ceylon, is assumed not to belong to B. moniliger, but to be a new 

 species. Four phases of B. moniliger are represented in my series of Batrachosfomi ex Ceylon ; 

 and one of the phases, that assumed by the almost adult male, agrees, feather for feather, with 

 Ibis, 1877, Mr. Hume's detailed description. Mr. Hume's single example and type was obtained from 

 ^' ' Mr. H. Nevill ; so were some of my specimens, and another from Malabar is in the British 

 Museum. Yet Mr. Hume remarks, " I do not think that the learned editor in question should 

 have so positively asserted what he had no means of verifying" (Str. F. 1876, p. 377). If 

 Mr. Bourdillon's Travancore examples specifically differ from the Ceylon B. moniliger, they, not 

 the Ceylon bird, require a new title ; but the male, as described by Mr. Hume, but slightly 

 diff'ers from a Ceylon male of B. moniliger in my collection. I trust. Sirs, whether my argument 

 appears to you convincing or not, that it will enable my fellow Members of the B. O. U., and 

 whose favourable opinion I prize, to judge of the scientific value of the criticism contained in the 

 following reckless passage Mf . Hume has ventured to print (l. c.) : — " It does seem a pity that 

 such very erroneous assertions [that B. castaneus=B. affinis, and that B. imnctatus=B. moniliger'] 

 "should be put forward so authoritatively without the remotest apparent grounds." Is it 

 uncharitable to suggest that " grounds " which may not be apparent to Mr. Hume may yet be 

 self-evident to any ornithologist who takes the trouble to acquire the rudiments of the subject 

 on which he professes to instruct others ? I remain yours, 



Chislehurst, May 16, 1877. TwEEDDALE. 



