284 
Lord Walden on Mr. Allan Hume’s 
of the young (Str. Feath. i. p. 339) is then quoted, the refer¬ 
ence and date 1873 being omitted and the impression left on 
the reader's mind that something had been said of the young 
when Dr. Fins eh wrote, and that somehow or other he ought 
to have known it. 
Dr. Finsch, for his account of Palceornis cyanocephalus 
(Linn.), is next passed under the harrow. “ Here, according 
to my views, Dr. Finsch has combined two distinct species. 
In the one, which I will call purpureus, Mull* (Dr. Finsch 
will set mef right, doubtless, about the synonymy)/' etc. : 
then descriptions of the two species and their differentiating 
characters are fully given, wound up with “ I do not enter¬ 
tain the smallest doubt that Dr. Finsch is in error in uniting 
these two forms . . . ." (t. c. pp. 15, 16). From this it 
might fairly be presumed that Dr. Finsch in or before 1868 
had heard of there being two species, those alluded to by 
Mr. Hume, but had declined recognizing them as distinct. 
Nothing of the sort. Their existence was known to no one 
at the time; and Dr. Finsch adopted the published state¬ 
ments of Jerdon and Blyth, neither of whom then ever sus¬ 
pected that two closely allied geographical races were being 
confounded under one title. The fact was, however, first dis¬ 
covered by Mr. Gould, and first made known by Mr. Blyth 
in 1870. “ Palceornis rosa. Some time ago Mr. Gould called 
my attention to two races confounded under this name, which 
are evidently distinct," etc. (Blyth, Ibis, 1870, p. 162). On 
Jerdon's return to England I showed to him skins of the two 
forms, and he at once admitted that they might fairly be con¬ 
sidered as belonging to two species; and in 1872 (Ibis, (3) ii. 
p. 6) he published, in a supplementary note to the f Birds of 
India,' his concurrence with Blyth's opinion. “ My views " 
had therefore been long before held by Gould, Blyth, Jerdon, 
and other European naturalists; but they were first promul¬ 
gated, and by Blyth, two years after the publishing date of 
f Die Papageien.' . The two supposed species of the late Mr. 
* Sic. 
t Or rather the late Mr. G. R. Gray (Hand-list, no. 8054), who in his 
turn got the title from Oassin (P. Ac. N. Sc. Philadelphia, 1864, p. 239). 
