Extinct Birds Part 10

PALAEOCORAX FORBES.

This genus is founded on cranial characters: Basipterygoid processes of parasphenoid present but rudimentary. The vomer broad, flat, and three-pointed in front. Maxillaries anchylosed to the premaxillaries, the latter anchylosed to the expanded ossified base of the nasal septum. The ossified mesethmoid stretches backward and is lodged in the concavity of the upper surface of the vomer, so that it presents a form intermediate between the complete aegithognathous forms, such as _Corvus_, and the compound aegithognathous forms, such as _Gymnorhina_, in which desmognathism was superadded by "anchylosis of the inner edge of the maxillaries with a highly ossified alinasal wall and nasal septum"

(Parker).

PALAEOCORAX MORIORUM (FORBES).

_Corvus moriorum_ Forbes, Nature XLVI p. 252 (1892).

_Palaeocorax moriorum_ Forbes, Bull. B.O.C. I p. XXI (1892).

Dr. Forbes says this bird is of about half the size again of a _Corvus cornix_. The princ.i.p.al characters are cranial, and the same as those of the genus.

Habitat: Chatham Islands, and possibly the Middle Island, New Zealand.

Many skulls and bones in the Tring Museum.

PALAEOCORAX ANTIPODUM FORBES.

_Palaeocorax antipodum_ Forbes, Ibis 1893, p. 544.

This is said to be distinguished from _P. moriorum_ by its considerably smaller size. Habitat: North Island, New Zealand.

{3}

FREGILUPUS LESSON.

Huge crest, bill long and curved. One species, extinct.

FREGILUPUS VARIA (BODD.)

(PLATE 1.)

_Huppes ou Callendres_, Voyages du Sieur D.B. (Dubois) aux Iles Dauphine ou Madagascar, et Bourbon ou Mascarenne, etc., p. 172 (1674--Bourbon).

_Huppe du Cap de Bonne Esperance_ Daubenton, Pl. Enl. 697.

_Huppe noire et blanche du Cap de Bonne Esperance_ Montbeillard, Hist.

Nat. Ois. VI, p. 463 (1779).

_Madagascar Hoopoe_ Latham, Gen. Syn. B. II pt. I, p. 690 (1783).

_Upupa varia_ Boddaert, Tabl. Pl. Enl. p. 43 (1783--ex Daubenton).

_Upupa capensis_ Gmelin, Syst. Nat. I, p. 466 (1788--ex Montbeillard).

_La Huppe grise_ Audebert et Vieillot, Ois. Dor., "Promerops" p. 15 pl.

III (1802).

_Le Merops huppe_ Levaillant, Hist. Nat. Promerops, etc., p. 43, pl. 18 (1806).

_Upupa madagascariensis_ Shaw, Gen. Zool. VIII, pt. I, p. 140 (1812).

_Coracia cristata_ Vieillot, Nouv. Dict. d'Hist. Nat. VIII, p. 3 (1817).

_Pastor upupa_ Wagler, Syst. Avium, Pastor, sp. 13 (1827).

_Fregilupus borbonicus_ Vinson, Bull. Soc. d'Acclimat 1868, p. 627.

_Fregilupus varius_ Hartlaub, Vog. Madagasc. p. 203 (1877); Sharpe, Cat. B. Brit. Mus. XIII p. 194 (1890); Milne-Edwards & Oustalet, Centenaire Mus. Hist. Nat., p. 205, pl. II (1893).

As long ago as 1674 a note about the "Huppe" exists, by "Le Sieur D.B.,"

_i.e._, Dubois. He says, when describing the birds of Reunion (translated): "Hoopoes or 'Callendres,' having a white tuft on the head, the rest of the plumage white and grey, the bill and the feet like a bird of prey; they are a little larger than the young pigeons; this is another good game (_i.e._, to eat) when it is fat."

This description has generally been accepted as referring to the _Fregilupus_, though that of the bill and feet is then due to an error of the author, for _Fregilupus_ has the bill and feet of a member of the _Sturnidae_ or family of Starlings.

Good descriptions and representations of the "Huppe" have been given in many places (see literature), but whether they were taken from males or females is generally not known. The s.e.xes seem to be alike in colour, but the female is smaller, and has a shorter and straighter bill than the male.

At least, this is the conclusion of Dr. Hartert, who saw the four examples in the museum at Troyes. As far as he could see through the gla.s.s all four {4} seemed to be adult birds, but two were larger with longer and more curved bills, two smaller and with shorter and straighter beaks, so that they are evidently two pairs.

This bird seems to have become extirpated about the middle of the last century. The late Monsieur Pollen wrote in 1868 (translated): "This species has become so rare that one did not hear them mentioned for a dozen years.

It has been destroyed in all the littoral districts, and even in the mountains near the coast. Trustworthy persons, however, have a.s.sured us that they must still exist in the forests of the interior, near St. Joseph.

The old creoles told me that, in their youth, these birds were still common, and that they were so stupid that one could kill them with sticks.

They call this bird the "Hoopoe." It is, therefore, not wrong what a distinguished inhabitant of Reunion, Mr. A. Legras, wrote about this bird with the following words: "The Hoopoe has become so rare that we have hardly seen a dozen in our wanderings to discover birds; we were even grieved to search for it in vain in our museum."

We are certain that _Fregilupus_ existed still on Reunion in 1835, as Monsieur Desjardins, living on Mauritius, wrote in a ma.n.u.script formerly belonging to the late Professor Milne-Edwards: "My friend, Marcelin Sauzier, has sent me four alive from Bourbon in May, 1835. They eat everything. Two have escaped some months afterwards, and it might well happen that they will stock our forests."

It seems, indeed, that specimens were killed in 1837 on Mauritius, where they did not originally exist. Verreaux shot an example in Reunion in 1832.

The names "La Huppe du Cap" and "_Upupa madagascariensis_" arose out of the mistaken notions that this bird lived in South Africa or Madagascar, but we know now that its real home was Reunion or Bourbon.

WE ARE AWARE OF THE FOLLOWING SPECIMENS PRESERVED IN COLLECTIONS.

2 stuffed ones, one in good, one in bad condition, and two in spirits, in the Paris Museum.

4 stuffed in Troyes.

1 stuffed, from the Riocour collection, in the British Museum.

1 in the Florence Museum.

1 in Turin.