LINNEAN SOCIETY OF LONDON. 67 



The Maltese Avifauna possesses special interest in relation to 

 tilt; course and circumstances o£ distribution and migration ; and 

 Mr. Wright's collection included twelve species never previously 

 recorded from those Islands, of which two were altogether new to 

 any part of Europe. Authentic specimens of ten out of the 

 twelve were presented by him to the Italian National Museum at 

 Florence, viz. : — Saxicola leucopyna, Saxicola stapazina (or deserti), 

 Merops j>ersicMS, Caprimulgus ruficollis, Bartramia longicaudata, 

 Cypsehis pcdlidus, Hoploptems spinosus, Aedon gcdactodes, Chara- 

 drius fulvics, and Enjthrospiza r/ithaghiea. 



In the ' Proceedings ' of the Zoological Society of London, April 

 6th, 1875, Mr. Wright contributed a paper on the " Specific 

 Identity of the Weasel found in Malta," in which it was pointed 

 out that the Maltese AVeasel cannot be purely identified with the 

 common Weasel of Southern Italy, nor with the local ' Boc- 

 camele' of Sardinia. One of the examples on which this paper 

 was founded was presented to the Natural History Branch of the 

 British Museum (South Kensington) ; and later, at the request 

 of the Museum authorities, five more specimens of the Maltese 

 Weasel were sent for special examination from Mr. Wright's 

 private collection, with the result that the Maltese Weasel has 

 been now referred by Mr. Oldfield Thomas (see Proceedings Zool. 

 Soc. London, Feb. 5th, 1895) to the extra -European species 

 Putoriiis africaniis, Desm. 



Mr. Wright's attention was by no means confined to the higher 

 forms of animal life in the Malta group, or to their living 

 representatives, and his efforts to explore the fossil fauna led to 

 the discovery of remains of the Mastodon in the Lower Miocene of 

 Gozo, and of Halitherium also (see A. Leith Adams in Journ. 

 Geol. Soc. London, Aug. 1879). 



He had also formed a Herbarium of the Flowering Plants and 

 Ferns of Malta, of much interest ; and was an enthusiastic 

 conchologist, his fine collection being rich in Mediterranean shells 

 particularly. 



Mr. Wriglit was made a Knight of the Order of the Crown 

 of Italy on the 22nd March, 1883, by the late King Humbert. 

 He was elected on 5th December, 1878, as a Fellow of this 

 Society, and in 1880 of the Zoological Society of London. He 

 was also a member of the British Ornithologists' Union, of 

 the Essex Field Club, and the Norwich Natural History Society. 

 His first contribution to the ' Ibis ' was an account of a visit to 

 Filfila, an islet on the south coast of Malta, in 1863, and his last a 

 letter on a Greenland Falcon shot at Lewes in 1883. For some 

 years past Mr. Wright resided at Kew, and though latterly much 

 crippled and often suffering from rheumatic complaints, he 

 maintained a lively interest in various branches of Natural 

 History, and with devoted assistance from members of his family 

 continued the formation of a British Herbarium, which includes 

 many fine and interesting examples of our native phanerogamic 

 flora. He lost no opportunity of learning from friends, so far as 



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