5 12 Dr. E. Hartert — Some Anticriticisms. 



XL. — Some Anticriticisms. 

 By Ernst IIaktert, Ph.D., F.Z.S. 



To call attention to and to rectify all errors in ornitho- 

 logical literature is neither possible nor, unfortunately, 

 always appreciated by the corrected party. If, however, 

 <>iic is inadvertently and erroneously accused of careless 

 mistakes, one must sometimes set matters right, because 

 errors contained in positive statements are more likely to be 

 propagated and will cause other errors. If, moreover, the 

 whole system for which one is fighting and working is 

 attacked in a review, one must reluctantly answer. These 

 considerations have caused the following anticriticisms. 



I. 



In ' Bull. 13. O. Club/ xii. p. 83 (June 1902), Mr. Dresser 

 says that some eggs of Ammomanes phmnicuroides "be- 

 longed to the form recently differentiated and described 

 by Mr. Hartert (Bull. B. O. C. xii. p. lo) under the name 

 Ammomanes cinctura zarudnii." 'This means nothing more 

 or less than that 1 have described Ammomanes p//a j ni- 

 caroides (which I treat as a subspecies of A. deserti) as a 

 new subspecies of an entirely different species of Ammo- 

 manes ! 1 need hardly say that I am sufficiently acquainted 

 with the species of Ammomanes (one of my favourite groups 

 of birds) to avoid such an error, and that there can be no 

 other reason for Mr. Dresser's statement than the fact that 

 Mr. Zarudny collected examples of both species (A. deserti 

 phomicuroides and A. cinctura zarudnyi, erroneously spelt 

 zarudnii by Mr. Dresser) in the same districts of Eastern 

 Persia, where they live close together, as do other forms of 

 A. deserti and A. cinctura in North Africa. 



II. 



In "The Ibis/ 1903, p. 593, curiously enough, Colonel 

 Bingham charges me with a similar offence, viz. : that 

 1 have described a known species as a new subspecies of 

 quite a different species. He says : — 



