
SUPPOSED NEW SPECIES OF NECROPSAR. 33 
top of the skull is somewhat flat. The outer plates of the palatines are 
emarginate with rounded external angles ; while the relations of their pos- 
terior lamine to the pterygoid bones, the form of the quadrates, and the 
distal end of the vomer, all appear to agree closely with the same parts in 
Fregilupus ; but it was not quite easy to make out these conditions to my com- 
plete satisfaction, as the hardened membranes could not be entirely removed, 
without risking too much. As in Necropsar and in Fregilupus, there is a well- 
marked post-orbital depression above the temporal fossa. The articular ends 
of the mandible also agree with the same parts in both of the other species. 
The tongue, in the dry state, is arrow-shaped, with a deeply-grooved 
horny body, and a bifurcate and frayed tip as in Fregilupus. In respect, 
however, of the proportionate dimensions of their various parts, both the 
tongue and the hyoid apparatus in the two birds differ considerably, as the 
following measurements indicate :— 
| Hind fork of From posterior 
From hind fork | tongue to pos- end of proximal, Distal end 

| of | From tip 
of tongue to its| terior end of to distal end of | uro-hyal to tip a Peed a 

tip. proximal thyro- second thyro-| of tongue. = 
/ | hyal. hyal cartil. | ; basi-hyal. 
<7 ae i gat eae a 7 iE fom <a ; j 
Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. 
Fregilupus . | 28 22 21 41 34 
Derby specimen —18 20 12°5 502) oy eee 

The beak of the Derby specimen, in being less curved than in Fregilupus, 
agrees more closely with Necropsar ; but, on the other hand, it is, perhaps, 
less slender at the extremity than in the former, and more slender than in 
the latter. 
What the wing formula of Neeropsar rodericanus may have been, we can- 
not, of course, now discover ; but if it presented the same characters which 
we see in Fregilupus varius, as it ought to have done if both the birds were, 
as is supposed, congeneric, then the Derby specimen differs in this respect 
very considerably from both species, and from Fregilupus, besides, in lacking a 
crest, notwithstanding the close osteological resemblances between them. So 
much is this the case that I have found it a difficult matter to decide in what 
group our bird should really be placed. It possesses ten primaries, and of 
these the tenth, or outermost, is not the rudimentary or very reduced quill 
seen in the Sturnide generally. The wood-cut (Fig. 1, p. 34) shows the rela- 
tive proportions of the principal remiges. According to Professor Garrod’s 
classification, the length and development of the outer primary, and the pro- 
portions of the secondaries to the primaries, should place our bird among the 
Formicaroid Passeres, but from which its pill and legs rigidly exclude it. The 
conditions, however, under which a bird, isolated in a small asylum like the 
Tle au Mat, lived, removed, as it would be, too, from the persecution to which 
it was subject on the mainland (over which the species may, not improbably, 
at one time have been distributed, till exterminated possibly by the birds of 
prey there), with little occasion for the vigorous use of its wings, might easily 
be expected to result in the weak and degenerate organs that our bird exhibits. 
The outer primary in our bird agrees pretty closely in length (38 mm.) with 
the same quill in Fregilupus, which is from 30-35 mm. 
The osteological characters, together with the form of the bill and of the 
tarsi and feet, in our specimen, seem to me to indicate preponderating 
leanings towards a Starling alliance. Resisting the temptation, therefore, to 
propose a new generic name for its reception, 1 have decided to place it pro- 
visionally under Mr. Slater’s Necropsar, because, at all events, such of its bones 
