274 
Lord Walden on Mr. Allan Hume’s 
written in either English, German, or French—-it being over¬ 
looked that while naturalists of all nations might and do 
agree to employ Latin as a common medium of thought-ex¬ 
change, it is most improbable that they would consent to 
forego using their own language and to adopt that of some 
rival nation. The Swedes, Norwegians, Danes, Russians, 
Dutch, Hungarians, Poles, Czechs, Spaniards, Portuguese, and 
Italians have all produced and are producing naturalists. 
Why are they to be condemned to write in English, French, or 
German? Would Mr. Hume consider it fair, when desirous of 
making known the discovery of a Dissemuroides dicruri- 
formis*(\), to be restricted to the use of the Czech, Russian, 
or Hungarian tongues ? Is not Latin also that language in 
which descriptions can be rendered with the greatest precision 
and conciseness? M. SevertzofPs recent work, f Turkes- 
tanskie Sevotnie,” is a case in point. It contains descrip¬ 
tions of many new species, and is entirely in Russian. It 
might be argued that M. Severtzoff should have written in 
English, French, or German. But perhaps M. Severtzoff 
may think that “ 100 years hence 33 Russian will be spoken 
by “ 500 millions of people 33 rather than English. Mr. 
Hume’s proposal carries its own refutation. 
Knowledge of the past and current literature implied, in 
natural history, by the term ‘ synonymy 3 meets with as little 
favour from Mr. Hume as every other branch of knowledge 
in which he is not a proficient. It is even doubtful, judging 
from his remarks, whether the meaning involved in the term 
is not somewhat beyond his grasp. A good synonymist, 
among other things, knows every description of a species, or, 
in other words, every species that has been described, and 
consequently the correct geographical range of each species. 
His statements of facts are therefore more likely to be accurate 
than those of the illiterate writer. If Mr. Hume were a 
synonymist he would have spared us many stale facts under 
the name of “ novelties.” Nor would he, for example, have 
recorded (op. cit. i. p. 378. no. 452) that a bird whose range 
is restricted to South China, locus chrysorrhoides, Lafr., occurs 
* Hume, Str. Feath. i. p. 408. 
