354 Lord Lilford on the Extinction in Europe 



ported from Sicily, and strictly preserved in the royal domains, 

 and that it is now quite extinct there. My brother, who has 

 just returned from Italy, tells me that very few persons of whom 

 he made inquiries had ever heard of a " Francolino ;" and on 

 one occasion a Goldfinch was brought to him, its possessor in- 

 sisting that it was the only real, genuine, and indivisible Fran- 

 colin. In the Grecian Archipelago I cannot discover that the 

 species now exists, though it appears to have been common 

 formerly in Mitylene, Samos, and Rhodes ; but, again, are we to 

 consider these islands as belonging to Europe ? Turkey is so 

 very wide a term that, till I know to what portion of that empire 

 Dr. Bree refers, I will content myself with saying that the 

 only part of European Turkey in which I can hear of Francolins 

 within the memory of man is the shores of the Gulf of Salonica, 

 and none are to be found there at present. I hope that 

 Dr. Bree, if he does me the honour to read this paper, will 

 perceive that the real question at issue between us is his au- 

 thority for the use of the present tense of the verb " inhabit" as 

 applied to the Francolin in Europe, and I shall be most happy 

 if he, " or any other man," can prove that it still exists on our 

 continent or its islands. 



It is remarkable that neither Temminck, Degland, nor Schlegel 

 should cite Spain as a locality for our bird, as, though now ex- 

 tinct in that country, it was formerly common in certain favour- 

 able localities, especially the neighbourhood of the Lake of Albu- 

 fera, near Valencia : vide ' Catalogo de las Aves de la Albufera,^ 

 by Vidal, who, referring to the woi'k published by Escolano, on 

 the fauna of the province of Valencia, in 1722, says of the Fran- 

 colin, — " Muy abundante en la Dehesa en tiempo de aquel escri- 

 tor, no se encuentra ya en semejante localidad." I saw speci- 

 mens from the above-mentioned " Dehesa " (a sandy strip of 

 land between the Lake of Albufera and the sea) in the Museum 

 at Valencia in 1856, which had been killed many years previ- 

 ously ; but during a long day spent in wandering about the 

 shores of the Albufera, gun in hand, and after inquiries amongst 

 the fishermen and cazadores of the place, I could only discover 

 that, to use a Spanish proverb, the Francolins were " idos y muer- 

 tos y no tienen amigos." Olina, to whom I have before referred, 



