494 
Letters, Announcements, Sec. 
(then unique) type specimen in question, before its trans¬ 
mission to Philadelphia, thought the opportunity of describing 
a new Paradise-bird, and at the same time of promulgating 
his republican sympathies, too good to he lost, and in spite 
of the injunctions of the owner of the specimen, inserted the 
name “ respublica” with a short diagnosis (certainly erro¬ 
neous, and probably drawn up from recollection), in a foot¬ 
note to a paper which he was at the time engaged upon for 
the f Comptes Rendus.’ It is certainly singular that another 
Paradise-bird should have been subsequently discovered that 
fits Bonaparte’s diagnosis; but that does not justify the trans¬ 
ference of the name to a species for which it was not intended. 
Indeed, under any circumstances, Bonaparte’s Lophorina 
(sive Diphyllodes) respublica should be rejected for insufficient 
definition. It cannot be too often repeated that the term to 
be adopted as the permanent designation of a species should 
not be a subject of conjecture, or even of disputed evidence, 
but the first term that is certainly applicable to it*. Were 
this wholesome rule adhered to more strictly, we should cease 
to be perplexed by such startling changes in our ordinary 
nomenclature as have lately been suggested to us from several 
quarters. 
P. L. ScLATER. 
In the 3rd number of f Der zoologische Garten’ for the 
present year (p. 213) Dr. F. Briiggemann gives a short account 
of a very fine new species of Polyplectron , recently discovered 
by Dr. G. Fischer in the interior of Borneo, which he proposed 
to call P. schleiermacheri. It is nearest to P. bicalcaratum, 
but, as we can testify from personal observation, very markedly 
distinct. Two skins of this fine new bird have been lately 
received by the Darmstadt Museum. W T hen we think of this 
and Lobiophasis, it becomes evident that there is still much 
to be done by the naturalist in the interior of Borneo. 
* Of. 1 Stricklandian Code of Zoological Nomenclature/ sect. 11 (p. 15 
of edition of 1863). 
