Lord Lilford^s Cruise in the Mediterranean. 7 



five years ago, already stuffed ; and though he (Doria) showed 

 it to me in a rather triumphant manner, as a proof that my 

 theory of the extinction of the species was incorrect, I can 

 hardly admit it as such proof, as he knew nothing of the date 

 of its capture. I may here mention, on this favourite sub- 

 ject, that in leaving England I had proposed to visit the 

 island of Cyprus, expressly to see the Francolins in their 

 native haunts ; but I was prevented from so doing by a va- 

 riety of causes ; and about the birds in Europe, properly so 

 called, I have hardly any thing to add to what has already 

 appeared in this Journal from the pen of my friend Mr. 

 Howard Saunders. Salvadori, in his most interesting work 

 on the ornithological fauna of Italy, which was presented to 

 me by the Marchese Doria, says, it seems to him that Mr. 

 Saunders and I were premature in proclaiming the extinction 

 of the species in Sicily ; and I am perfectly willing and very 

 glad to admit that this is the case, as will be seen from Mr. 

 Saunders^ s papers above mentioned ; but from all that I could 

 learn subsequently in Sicily, not a single specimen has fallen 

 into the hands of any naturalist since 1869 ; and, for many 

 years before that, the occasional rare occuiTcnce of a solitary 

 individual in the old haunts of the species only went to prove 

 that, although strictly speaking not completely extinct, the 

 species was rapidly becoming so ; and in spite of the diligent 

 personal researches of more than one competent naturalist, 

 one could never depend on shooting, or seeing, a Francolin, or 

 even hearing its sonorous cry in its favourite localities, for at 

 all events twenty years past. In the harbour of Genoa were 

 great numbers of Larus leucophaeus , L. ridibundus, L. me- 

 lanocephalus , and some few of Larus canus. I did not see 

 Larus fuscus in adult plumage ; but amongst the many brown- 

 feathered gulls at Genoa I have little doubt that it existed. 

 It is not an uncommon bird in the western portion of the 

 Mediterranean ; but immature specimens are more frequently 

 met with than the adults. In the gardens of the Museo 

 Civico at Genoa, Doria showed me an Eagle alive, which I 

 have no doubt was Aquila rapax ; but the locality whence 

 it came was unfortunately not known. The Museo will soon 



