452 MESSRS, SCLATER AND FINSCH'S INDEX, 



If they had attacked me about spelling the word Otocoris 

 instead of Otocorys one might have understood, but to charge 

 me with spelling the word Otocaris ! This is by many degrees 

 too bad, and if these very learned and would-be ironical gentle- 

 men are not sorry for thus traducing a blameless innocent 

 like myself, I hope that some one else will kindly blush for 

 them as they clearly must be past blushing for themselves. 



As to Otocoris, if this had been what they charged me with, 

 I should have pleaded guilty to the impeachment ; I should have 

 admitted that I was quite aware that Dr. Oabanis had chosen 

 to spell the word Otocorys, and that I also knew that Dr. Finsch 

 had endorsed this modification of the real name, but I should 

 have urged that Prince Bonaparte named the genus, and 

 named it Otocoris and not Otocorys ; that I disputed the right 

 of third parties to go and alter other people's names to please 

 their own tastes, and that further as Dr. Gray adhered to 

 Otocoris I on the whole thought it — , , 



''Better to err with Gray than shine with..,,.,......." 



Well, other people. 



Now I cannot pretend to have as yet read or studied this 

 Index to the Ornithological Literature of 1872, but the authors' 

 names are a guarantee that it must be all that is excellent and 

 accurate, and consequently my feelings have been much hurt 

 to find -in consulting the entries referring to myself four very 

 inexplicable errors. 



I am quite sure that no such work by Drs. Sclater and Finsch 

 can possibly contain more than four errors. Then I would 

 ask what I have done, wretched man that I am, to draw thus 

 upon me the accumulated wrath of the immortals ? Why are all 

 these blunders poured out upon my devoted head ? 



Was it not enough to accuse me of spelling Otocoris, Otocaris, 

 and then to gibbet my imaginary offence with a sarcastic, sic ! ? 

 No ! the vengeance of the gods was not thus to be sated. 



At page 461 I am said to have described Ptyonoprogne cine- 

 rea from Sindh. I never heard of the bird in my life ; I des- 

 cribed P. pallida from Sindh (which turns out to be the African 

 obsoleta, Cab.) but cinerea is a pure creature of Drs. Finsch's 

 and Sclater's imaginations. 



At page 462 it is asserted that I state ie reasons for identify- 

 in o- Dr. Stoliczka's species" (F. sordidd) "with that of Hodg- 

 son" (F. nemoricola) ; whereas I give conclusive proof that the 

 two are quite distinct. 



At page 491 it is said that Lord Walden identifies "specimens 

 named Erythrosterna parva in nuptial plumage by Mr. Hume 

 with Siphia [Menetka) hyperythra, Cabanis ; of Ceylon. " 



