296 
Lord Walden on Mr. Allan Hume's 
what does Colonel Tytler say in 1867? That gentleman 
resided for some time in the Andamans as governor. He 
was an accurate observer, and discovered and described many 
good species. He had all the qualifications insisted on by 
Mr. Hume as alone entitling a man to deference; for he 
was not only a field naturalist, but something far higher, an 
Indian field naturalist. Colonel Tytler described the Anda¬ 
man Parrakeet, his P. affinis, thus—“ generally like P. ery- 
throgenys , the red cheek-mark and coloration of which it 
possesses, but differs constantly in having a black bill” (Ibis, 
1867, p. 320). Beavan adds, on Colonel Tytler’s authority, 
“ P. erythrogenys he ” (Colonel Tytler) “ has seen in all stages, 
and it always has a red bill” ( l. c.). Nor is this all; Dr. 
Finsch,as above stated, founded his opinion on Herr v. Pelzeln’s 
description of a “ sexed specimen ” of a female in the Vienna 
Museum, obtained in the Nicobars “in the flesh” by the 
‘Novara’ expedition. Three “sexed” as males, five “sexed” 
as females, and one specimen, with sex undetermined, came to 
the Vienna Museum. By what, then, was Dr. Finsch to be 
guided ? Apart from Colonel Tytler’s opinion, the conclusions 
of Mr. Blyth drawn from unmarked skins ? or the statement 
of Herr v. Pelzeln, who had had the advantage of examining 
eight marked skins ? Is it not allowable to assume that the 
zoologists attached to any European or American scientific 
expedition are capable of correctly determining by dissection 
the sexes of the specimens they obtain ? But Mr. Hume 
readily disposes of this, I venture to submit, equitable argu¬ 
ment in these words, “on the strength ‘of an old female in 
the Vienna Museum ’ (palpably, to us who know the species, 
an old male)” etc. (t. c. p. 24). Unhappily Dr. Finsch, like 
most people, at least in Europe, not being gifted with a pro¬ 
phetic spirit, was unable to foretell in 1868 what “ us who 
know the species ” might know in 1874. 
The same remarks will apply in the main to Mr. Hume’s 
criticisms of the account given by Dr. Finsch of Palceornis 
caniceps , Blyth, the last of the nine good species of the genus 
within Mr. Hume’s acquaintance. This handsome Parrakeet 
w as likewise described from a single skin (much mutilated) 
