30 BULLETIN OF THE LIVERPOOL MUSEUMS. 
than, and not unlike, an ancient up-turned coracle, of which last the few patri- 
archal individuals, that have bridged the centuries and survived for us to see 
in the flesh, may well have been actual contemporaries of the creatures whose 
features we can picture only from their bones, and eye-witnesses of the 
passing of the last survivor of them. 
For many charming chapters in the history of the lost population of the 
Mascarene region, we are specially indebted to the researches of, among 
others, those distinguished zoologists, Milne-Edwards, Grandidier, Oustalet, 
Strickland, Forsyth Major, Tristram, and pre-eminently of Sir Edward and 
Professor Newton. From the vanishing species, thus recovered, or recon- 
structed from their bones, and replaced, though unclothed with flesh, in the 
scenes they once peopled, it is possible to piece together the broken story 
they tell of the profound climatic and geographical vicissitudes by which the 
inhabitants of the region have been buffeted to and fro; of the migrations 
from other latitudes which they have been driven to make, and of the more 
spacious homes that they once occupied. 
To the late Sir Edward and his brother, Professor Alfred Newton, we owe 
the salvation to ornithology of one of the latest additions to the list of the 
fast disappearing fauna of the Mascarenes, that expiring, if not already quite 
extinct, Parakeet (Palwornis erul), of which two specimens now in Cambridge, 
obtained, in Rodriguez, by Sir Edward Newton, are still the only known 
examples. 
It is with no little satisfaction that I am able to add, what I believe to be, 
still another species to that list. 
In a cabinet in the Derby Museum, where it had reposed for nearly tifty 
years, among species of Hypsipetes, there was discovered in*the early part of 
this year (1897), during an examination of our unmonnted ornithological 
collection for the purposes of the ‘Catalogue of Birds in the Derby Museum’ 
now in progress, a flat skin in perfect preservation. That it had been left 
undetermined for so long a period is probably due to the fact of its being 
taken for an albino of some species of the above-named genus, or perhaps for 
a white starling. 
At first sight the bird is, in general appearance, not dissimilar from those 
with which it was associated, but a closer examination soon proved that it 
differs greatly from them in the form of the bill and in the external characters 
of its legs, which are sturnine. Its wings, however, are quite. unlike those 
of any starling, and while the bill persisted in associating itself in my mind 
with that of the Crested Starling (/regilupus varius) of Réunion, the form of 
the wings and the absence of a crest long prevented me from including it in 
that alliance. 
As to its history, I regret that I can supply no more than the meagre 
information afforded by its label, that it was “purchased,” probably by its 
former noble owner, Lord Derby, on the “10th August, 1850, from M. J. 
Verreaux,” the then well-known ornithologist and dealer in Paris ; and as to 
its habitat, only what the reverse of the label bears, in the handwriting pre- 
sumably of M. Verreaux, the single word ‘ Madagascar.” 
From an observation of Dr. Murie’s, in his paper on Fregilupus varius 
(P.Z.S., 1874, p. 474), it would appear that M. Jules Verreaux personally 
visited some of the Mascarene Islands about “ the year 1832(1?)” where he 
shot, in the island of Réunion, the specimen of Fregilupus varius from which 
was made the skeleton, given by him to Professor Newton, forming the sub- 
ject of Dr. Murie’s paper. During that visit, probably, he may have also 
secured the bird which was eventually purchased for Lord Derby in 1850. 
It is well known that M. Verreaux was often very inexact in the precise 
geographical data he inscribed on the labels of his specimens. ‘‘ Madagascar,” 
the locality given by him for our bird, may, therefore, if he did not himself 
actually collect the specimen, mean any part of the Mascarene region. 
