352 Further Notice of the Species of Wild Sheep. [April^ 



and credit will of course be given him for having duly studied the 

 writings of his predecessors, or he is unqualified for the task, and 

 should be content to borrow the assistance of those who do profess to 

 have done so. 



But I am pleased to see that Mr. Hodgson now admits my Ovis 

 burrhel, as a good species : because, not very long ago (in XI, 283), 

 he stated, positively, that " Mr. Blyth's Ovis burrhel is no other than 

 my nahoor. Mr. Blyth's" (i.e. the Zoological Society's) "specimen of 

 which was dyed brown by a preservative lotion that was applied by the 

 killer and curer of it, Lieutenant Smith, 15th Native Infantry!!" 

 (Vide also note.) Captain Smith has lately favored me with sundry 

 items of information respecting Himalayan mammalia ; comprising a 

 notice of O. burrhel, nobis, as distinct from O. ndhdor, which I shall 

 presently have occasion to cite. 



In the course of a note which I appended to Mr. Hodgson's above 

 quoted remark on my O, burrhel, I took occasion to observe (XI, 

 284, and there is another reminder in XV, 153), that " With respect to 

 O. ammonoides, Hodgson, it will be remembered that I had dedicated 

 this animal to Mr. Hodgson himself, terming it Hodgsonii, some time 

 before the publication of the name ammonoides" i. e. in the ' Proceedings 

 of the Zoological Society' for July 1840, whereas Mr. Hodgson's paper 

 descriptive of 0. ammonoides, and published in the Society's Journal 

 for 1841, p. 230, bears his own dafe of March for that year. I cannot, 

 therefore, understand upon what principle Mr. Hodgson adheres to 

 the latter appellation ; and the more especially as he is known to be 

 particularly tenacious of his own nomenclature.* 



* On the same occasion, I pointed out that Captain Hutton's Ovis cycloceros had been 

 priorly named by me 0. Vignei: and Captain Hutton, accordingly, adopts the latter 

 name in preference to that of his own coining-, in XV, 152. Nor -is the above the only 

 instance of the kind I have reason to complain of, on the part of Mr. Hodgson, who 

 must show a little more respect for the claims of others if he expects his own to be up- 

 held. For example, some time ago Mr. Hodgson will remember sending me a bird by 

 the name Chelidorhynx chrysoschistos, which I informed him that I already had in print, 

 by the name Rhipidura hypoxantha, XII, 935 : and in correcting the proof, I inserted, an 

 acknowledgment of the receipt of Mr. Hodgson's specimen (in the following page), 

 adding that 1 then adopted his genus Chelidorhynx ; which, however, has since proved 

 to be true Rhipidura, as opposed to Leucocerca, Swainson (vide XV, 290). Yet Mr. 

 Hodgson had no compunction in publishing his Chelidorhynx chrysoscliistos as a new 

 species in the ' Proceedings of the Zoological Society' for 1845, p. 32; and at p. 26 he 



