356 Further No/ice of the Species of Wild Sheep. [April, 



relieve our catalogues of the incumbrance of fictitious species, Zoolo- 

 gists have great reason to complain that he suffers the misleading 

 synonymes of his own imposing to remain permanently uncorrected. 

 Thus, when I privately informed Mr. Hodgson that his Astur indicus 



termed another — " Gregicolus, (nob.)" — In all seven new n am es (to pass over the ex- 

 traordinary construction of some of them) ! 



" Of these," it is added, " 2 and 3 are nearly allied to cristatella and Iristis ; 4 and 5 

 to pagodarum and malubarica. The 6th inclines much to Sturnus ; and the 7th, a very 

 osculant species, has a very considerable resemblance in the form of its wings, tail and 

 legs, to Cinclosoma," (indeed it has no sort of relationship with the Mynahs). 



Not one of these names has since been rectified, except by myself ■ though referring 

 to some of the commonest birds of the whole Bengal Presidency. Thus, Religiosa is 

 the common Hill Mynah, so often caged, and now standing as Gracala ajfjuis, A. Hay, 

 ( XV, 32.) Cristelloides is another species first distinguished by Lord Arthur Hay, (vide 

 X\ r , 33,) from Acridotheres cristatellus, (L.) , of China ; and it now stands as Acr. griseus, 

 (Horsfield) : though Dr. Horsfield was not justified in changing the name of his Java- 

 nese bird to griseus, since he believed in its identity with the Chinese cristatellus. Tris- 

 toides is the common House Mynah, Acr. tristis,(L.),so abundant throughout the country. 

 Gregicolus is Acr. ginginianus, (L.), or the common Bank Mynah. Communis is Sturnus 

 contra, Auct., now termed Stumopastor (contra) by Mr. Hodgson. Sylvestris is Sturnia 

 pagodarumj (Gm.), v. melanocephala, (Bahl). Ajffinis is St. malabarica. And Terricolor 

 is the ' Brown Indian Thrush' of Edwards, first identified as such by myself, and also 

 first distinguished by myself, (not by Mr. Hodgson, whose name I have nevertheless 

 adopted,) from the nearly allied Malacocercus striatus, Swainson, of Ceylon. 



Now, what benefit to science, it may well be asked, accrues from this random applica- 

 tion of a host of new names ; without so much as a clue to the particular species they refer 

 to ? Or what skill is required in the manufacture of such names 1 It is true that they 

 are not binding in the least, unless some kind of intelligible description, or distinctly re- 

 cognisable figure, is attached to them ; but even in the latter case it is scarcely fair that 

 those who first really discriminate species from their affines should be deprived of the 

 right of naming them, because they had previously been described perhaps at random, 

 without any trouble having been taken to determine whether they really were new— or 

 perchance even familiarly known, as were most of Mr. Hodgson's Mynahs just referred 

 to. 



There is an old story that the most unskilful marksman may hit his object occasionally 

 by flinging a handful of missiles at it together : and so by affixing new names to a mul- 

 titude of species thus at random, and describing them at a venture, the merest tyro may 

 chance to have his vanity gratified, sometimes, by seeing his name quoted as the de- 

 scriber of an actual novelty, regardless of the number of synonymes to which also he 

 finds his name attached, and of the confusion which he thus oftentimes introduces. 



It would be a beneficial rule if the merits of a describer of new species were to be 

 estimated by the number of those which he succeeds in establishing, minus or deduct- 

 ed by that of the synonymes which he has applied to previously known species, or at least 

 of such as remain uncorrected by him after a given period : and the permanent establish- 



