List of Birds observed in Malta and Cfozo. 253 



but was brought from Tunis ! I may mention here the mani- 

 festly absurd assertion of Malherbe (whose statements have more 

 than once been questioned) in his Fauna of Sicily, that Perdix 

 cinerea " visits that island every spring and autumn when on its 

 passage from North Africa to Italy and back''*. Thanks to the 

 more exact and extended researches of modern naturalists, 

 everybody knows that North Africa is perfectly innocent of this 

 species. 



Perdix petrosa (?). This last species has been several times 

 taken; but as it is the custom to import them from Barbary, it 

 is an open question whether those captured here are fugitives or 

 not, as the genus Perdix is not famed for its migratory habits f- 



Totanus macularius. ] All these three are favoured with 



Tringa rufescens. > Maltese names, and stated to be 



T. maritima. ) common ! 



Tringa pectoralis also enjoys a Maltese name ; but in this 

 instance our author merely states it is "RR", i. e. very rare. 

 It must be borne in miud that he has no specimens to show for 

 these or any of the subsequent species here enumerated ; and a 

 close observation by myself for the last, I may say, twenty 

 years, aided by the experience of several ornithological friends, 

 has never revealed these wonders to my eyes. 



Tringa platyrhyncha. 



Tringa schinzi. 



Vanellus gregarius. Also favoured with a Maltese name ! 



Porphyria hyacinthinus. This bird is sometimes kept in a 

 domesticated state for ornament ; and to the circumstance of an 

 escaped captive is probably owing its introduction into the Bird- 

 fauna of Malta. It is of such well-known sedentary habits 

 that, even if one were actually taken here, a searching inquiry 

 would be requisite before accepting it ; nevertheless we find 



* [We have been unable to find this sentence in the * Faune Ornitho- 

 logique de la Sicile.' What Malherbe says (p. 154) is " Cette perdrix si 

 commune en France parait n'etre que de passage en Sicile ainsi qu'en 

 Egypte et sur les cotes de Barbarie," which is perhaps more erroneous. 

 —Ed.] 



t [P. rufa, however, decidedly has migi-ant inclinations. — See Mr. 

 Stevenson's ' Birds of Norfolk' (i. pp. 413-416).— Ed.] 



