254 Mr. C. A. Wright's Third Appendix to a 



attached to it a vernacular name, and a very inappropriate 

 one too. 



As evidence, on the other hand, that this sedentary bird may 

 occasionally take long flights from its native marshes and rice- 

 fields of South Europe and Northern Africa, I remember read- 

 ing in the English newspapers a few years ago that at a meet- 

 ing of the Natural History Society of Glasgow, Dr. Dewar ex- 

 hibited, amongst other rare birds collected in the month of 

 January 1864, in various localities in the west of Scotland, a 

 Purple Gallinule {Porphyria hyacinthinus) from the neighbour- 

 hood of Campbeltown ; and it was said that it bore no traces of 

 having been in confinement. What will ornithologists say to 

 this* ? Malta is a far more likely locality for a straggler of this 

 species to turn up in, it being plentiful in the marshes of Syra- 

 cuse on the one side, and of Tunis on the other. But whatever 

 may be the fact, there is not, I believe, in the possession of any- 

 body here an authenticated specimen to attest its claims for 

 admission, even as an accidental visitor, into the Maltese Ornis. 



I had written this when a few days ago I observed in the 

 Malta University Museum two freshly-stuffed specimens of 

 Porphyria hyacinthinus, which I was informed had just been 

 captured here. Somewhat staggered, but not altogether satis- 

 fied, I instituted inquiries amongst the dealers, and ascertained 

 that the two birds claimed as Maltese belonged to a parcel of 

 six that had been brought over by a seaman from Syracuse ! 



Cuvier states, upon what grounds I know not, that this 

 species is originally African, and has been naturalized in Europe 

 on account of its beauty f- 



Anser brachyrhynchus. Possibly copied from my first list, 

 into which it was erroneously admitted, and subsequently struck 

 out. 



Fuligula gesneri. Said to be common ! 



Clangula histrionica ! ! 



* [We have met with several statements of this kind, but it has never 

 been satisfactorily shown that the birds in question had not escaped from 

 coniinement. — Ed.] 



t [It was figured by Gesner, from a drawing sent to him from Mont- 

 pellier (Hist. Anim. iii. p. 776). — Ed.] 



