Dr. E. Hartert — Some Ant/criticisms. 543 



"51. Hemixus holti (Swinh.). 



" This is the species, I think, separated by Mr. Hartert 

 as a subspecies of H. tickeUi under the name H. tickelli 

 binghami. It agrees fairly well with specimens of H. holti 

 in the British Museum." 



The case, however, is quite different. Three years ago 

 we received from Col. Bingham a bird which he had named 

 Hemixus maclellandi and had recorded under that name in the 

 Journ. As. Soc. Beng. lxix. p. Ill (1900). This bird was, 

 nevertheless, not a Hemixus maclellandi at all, but a form of 

 Hemixus (or Iole) holti, differing from the typical H. holti in 

 various details pointed out by me in Nov. Zool. 1902, p. 558, 

 where I described the specimen in question under the name 



Iole holti binghami, 



but not as Iole tickelli binghami ! It gave me great pleasure 

 to name a bird in honour of one of the best field- 

 ornithologists known to me, and I believe it was the first 

 time that a bird had been named after Col. Bingham. I 

 only regretted that I had no occasion to associate a more 

 strikingly different bird with his name, but still more do 

 I regret now that my work, instead of avoiding a mistake 

 for the future, has led Col. Bingham to make a still more 

 erroneous statement. 



III. 



In ' The Ibis/ 1904, p. 291, appeared what was apparently 

 meant for a review of the first part of my book ' Die Vogel 

 der paliiarktischen Fauna/ This review is of such a nature 

 that I cannot refrain from answering it — not of course (as 

 my brother-ornithologists will understand) to defend my 

 person, but to defend the system for which I fight, for the 

 sake of truth and the progress of our beloved science. 



v ' It is quite time that a protest should be made against " * 

 reviews in which books are objected to because they are 

 not " conservative " enough, and reviews which only or 

 mostly deal with the nomenclature of a book, while nonien- 



* Cf. ' Ibis,' 100i, p. 29-2. 



