352 Lord Lilford on the Ecctinction in Europe 



XXXIX. — On the Extinction in Europe of the Common Fran- 

 colin (Francolinus vulgaris, Steph.). By Lord Lilford, 

 F.L.S., F.Z.S. 



The game birds of Europe having always been objects of special 

 interest to me as a sportsman, I have devoted a good deal of 

 time and attention to the habits and history of the rarer species 

 of that class; and my object in this paper is to throw together 

 all the information that I have been able to collect about that 

 most beautiful species the Common Francolin, which I have 

 every reason to believe is now totally extinct in Europe. I 

 notice that Dr. Bree, in his ' Birds of Europe not observed in 

 the British Isles '*, states that the Francolin inhabits the South 

 of Europe, especially Sicily, Malta, Cyprus, Sardinia, Naples, 

 the Grecian Archipelago, and Turkey. I propose to show that, 

 with the exceptions of Cyprus (which can surely hardly be con- 

 sidered as part of Europe) and Turkey, which I take to include 

 Asia Minor, the Francolin is no longer to be met with in any of 

 the above localities. Let us begin with the first-named, Sicily. 

 M. Malherbe's account, quoted by Dr. Bree from the * Faune 

 Ornithologique de la Sicile,' is probably well known to most of 

 the readers of ' The Ibis '; but it is perhaps less generally known 

 that this account is translated verbatim from the ' Ornitologia 

 Siciliana't di Luigi Benoit, published at Messina, 1840. I 

 have not visited the particular localities mentioned in that work 

 as being at that time the head-quarters of the Francolin in Sicily ; 

 but after diligent inquiries in the island in 1856, amongst 

 sportsmen, cacciatori, game-dealers, and others well acquainted 

 with the bird, I could only arrive at the fact that not one had 

 been seen alive, or freshly killed, during the ten previous years. 

 A friend of mine who made a shooting expedition in 1858, in 

 what were formerly the head-quarters of the Francolin, and who 

 is well acquainted with the Black Partridge, as the Common 

 Francolin is termed in India, told me that he saw several stuffed 

 specimens in different places, but never saw one alive in Sicily, 

 and that all the cacciatori agreed that the bird no longer existed 

 in their shooting-grounds; although some of the veterans re- 



* Vol. iii. p. 237. t Ibid. p. 118. 



