271 
Review of Dr. Finsch 3 s ‘ Die Papageien . 3 
accused of treating Jerdon, Blyth, and all Indian ornitholo¬ 
gists generally with slighting discourtesy; and, secondly, 
of displaying a wanton and perverse ignorance of the species 
he has written upon—“ error too, entirely gratuitous" (t. c. 
p. 1). It is proposed in the following remarks to examine 
into these accusations and to ascertain whether, considering 
their gravity when brought against a scientific man, they rest 
upon any more solid foundation than Mr. Hume's assertions. 
With this object in view each species known in the skin by 
Mr. Hume will be treated separately and in its order, while 
the remarks of Mr. Hume on the remaining species of the 
genus, unknown to him, will be left unnoticed. Some pre¬ 
liminary and lesser (speaking comparatively) attacks on Dr. 
Finsch deserve a cursory review, and may conveniently be at 
once referred to. 
Before entering into details, Mr. Hume records his “hum¬ 
ble protest against the presumptuous .... systematic pedantry 
which characterizes a certain section (chiefly continental) of 
naturalists, and leads them to discard the names given, too 
often by better men than themselves, .... for new-fangled 
appellations of their own, because, forsooth, their vast clas¬ 
sical attainments have enabled them to discover that the ori¬ 
ginal name is not a f classich*gebildeteswort 3 f. Dr. Finsch 
is a hardened offender in this respect, and cannot possibly be 
recommended to mercy " (t. c. p. 2). And Dr. Finsch is then 
fallen upon for his alterations of the specific titles schisticeps , 
Hodgs., and “ Jerdon'sf columboides 33 to hodgsoni and peris- 
terodes. “ Let us," Mr. Hume exclaims with an inimitable 
humour, “ Let us treat our author as he treats other people's 
species. f Finsch 3 § ! contrary to all rules of orthography ! 
what is that c s ' doing there ? f Finch 3 ! Dr. Fringilla , mihi ! 
Classich || gebildetes wort % !!" (/. c .). Nor is this dull drollery 
permitted to expire. For, once and again, in sentences such as 
“now to return to Dr. Fringilla, I mean Finsch" (t. c. p. 4), 
* Corrected in errata. t Sic. | Sic. 
§ All words in italics throughout this paper, other than titles of species, 
are so printed by Mr. Hume. 
|| Corrected in errata. *[[ Sic. 
u 2 
