NOVITATES ZOOLOGICAE. 



Vol. rv. DECEMBER. 1897. No. 3. 



G0MATIBI8 EREMITA (Linn.), A EUEOPEAN BIRD. 



By the HON. W. ROTHSCHILD, E. HARTERT, a.nd O. KLEINSCHMIDT. 



(Plates VIII., IX., X.) 



TV /TR. JUNGHANS, of Cassel, first called Kloiuschmidt's atteution to the peculiar 

 -^-^ tignre of the " Waldrabe" ou PL XVII. in Vol. 11. of Bechsteiu's (iemein- 

 niitzige Naturgeschichte Deutschlands. While discussiug together this figure, the 

 authors of the present article came across Gesner's description of the " Waldrapp," 

 and following up the literature came to the conclusion that Gesner's bird did not 

 belong to the Corvidae, as generally su])posed, but was the same as the I/jIs roinata 

 of recent authors, well known to every ornithologist from the splendid plate in 

 Dresser's Birds of Europe. The following review of the literature on Gesner's 

 " Waldrapp " and our plates will show that this bird formerly inhabited parts of 

 Europe. Though the reasons of its disappearance are not known to us, they may 

 be similar to those which have caused the Glossy Ibis {This falcinellu£) to become, 

 from a frequent visitor to England, a rare straggler in our days. (Cf Dresser, 

 B. Europe, Vol. VI. pp. 336, 337.) 



Comatibis eremita (L.). 



Upupa eremita Linnaeus, Syst. Nat. Ed. X. p. 118. no. 3 (1758) (Helvetia). (" U. viridis, capite 

 flavo, cervice jubata. Coreiis sylvaticus Gesn. av. 351 ; Aldr. orn. 1. 11). e. 57. Eremita moiitamis 

 si/lvaticus Alb. av. p. 16. t. 16. Habitat in Helvetia.") 



It is evident that Linnaens did not himself see his ('pupa eremita, but that he 

 based it on Gesner's, Aldrovandus', and Albin's works. 



Gesner in 1555, as well as in his Vogelbuch (1583), and again in the second Latin 

 edition, gives the figure which is reproduced in our PI. VIII. , and descriptions 

 which follow hero in English translation : — 



" Of the Woou-Raven. 



" Corvu-i sylmticiiJi. 



" The bird of which the tigiin? is Iiere given is generally called by our people 

 a Wood-Raven (' Waldra])]) "), because it lives in the uninhabited woods, where it 

 nests in high cliffs, t>r old ruineil towers and castles, which places also caused it to 

 l)e called Stone-Raven (' Steiurapp '), or elsewhere in Bavaria and Styria ' Klausrapp,' 

 from the rocks and narrow caves and holes in which it builds its nest. In Lorraine 

 and on the Lago Maggiore it is called a .Sea-Raven (' Meerrapp ") ; in other 2)Iaces 

 Wood-Raven, as in Italy, where a man is lowered down on a rope to take it out of 

 its nest, as it is considereil a great delicacy (• ein schhkk '). In our country it is 



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