cviii Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. [Oct. 1845 



Such being- the case, I venture to hope that the Committee will perceive the justice 

 of retracting the very sweeping charge against " naturalist editors, publishers, and 

 artists" which has appeared in the Journal of the Society : and that it will also admit 

 that the grievous animadversions complained of, having reference to myself, were not 

 merely unnecessarily harsh , but were altogether uncalled for, as founded on a misappre- 

 hension of my meaning. At the least, I consider that it was due to me to have been for- 

 mally asked whether my opinions on the subject were correctly expressed, before such a 

 procedure was resorted to as that of publicly stigmatizing them in the Society's Journal. 



Ed. Blyth. 



Asiatic Society's Rooms, Fort William, Aug. 23, 1845. 



Note to the foregoing by the Secretary. 

 In submitting this note the Secretary desires to remark that Mr. Blyth takes a most 

 mistaken view of the paragraph in question ; inasmuch as, on reading it attentively, it 

 will be clearly seen that no proposal of perpetrating any scientific fraud is attributed to 

 him, but it is simply said that if the Society admitted corrections, it would perpetrate a 

 fraud, and the Committee will remark that it is now fully and clearly admitted by Mr. 

 Blyth himself, that he did propose corrections of joints, muscles and attitudes. How far 

 those corrections were to go, will appear from par. 1 of Mr. Blyth's paper in which he 

 distinctly again avows, — asserting that " the Cabool Hyena is perfectly known," which 

 assumes but one variety to exist, and that we have so perfect a knowledge of the zoology 

 of Afghanistan, that we can be certain that there is only one variety ; and farther that, 

 only one variety exists in the whole valley of the Indus, which would include Scinde, 

 (where Sir A. Burnes's drawings commence.) Asserting and assuming all this at once 

 then, Mr. Blyth proposed, he himself says, to substitute " a proper figure and fill it up 

 with the markings of the Cabool Hyena." 



2. Par. 2 of Mr. Blyth's letter carries the matter still further. Pronouncing on an 

 animal which none but travellers in the almost untrodden regions of the Hindu Kosh 

 have seen, and Dr. Lord alone perhaps examined as a naturalist, we are told that by 

 reference to certain drawings of "closely allied species," the horns, &c, a good figure 

 can be taken from it ; so that here is the manufacture of two entire animals distinctly 

 proposed as a mere matter of course ! The same style of argument is continued as to the 

 birds which are also proposed to be " corrected" from stuffed specimens in the face of 

 drawings made from the life. 



3. The Secretary presumes that these paragraphs most fully justify the caution and 

 strict observance of the principle upon which the Committee acted, and which the Society 

 approved; of keeping to rigid and exact copying: and the Committee's expressions (used 

 to explain that strictness) that " if the Society consented to any such alterations, it would 

 be guilty of a scientific fraud, publishing as the drawings made on Sir A. Burnes's mission, 

 pictures of something else, &c." We have before us now two distinct proposals for 

 making pictures ; one of which may yet be carried into effect, if the Society approve of it. 



In Mr. Gray's paper, it will be observed that an owl (Athene convivens) came thus 

 to be described by Latham as a Falcon ! &c. &c. See No. for March 1843, p. 189. 



Vide also Mr. Strickland's remarks in the May No., p. 334 ; though I could wish that 

 he had reflected more severely upon the above mentioned extremely objectionable prac- 

 tice on the part of Latham.— E. B. 



