218 EXTERMINATION 
Perhaps, also, there were other Ralline birds, but the evidence on 
this head is inconclusive. From Rodriguez, the greater part of its 
original Avifauna has vanished. 'There was a small but peculiar 
OwL, Athene murivora, a big Parrot, Necropsittacus rodericanus, a 
Dove, Erythrana (1% sp. ign.), a large brev ipennate ALERON, Ardea 
megacephala, and a singular RAIL, described as Axerpibess lequati, 
but perhaps not penerically. distinet from the Mauritian Aphanapteryx 
—hesides other birds of which we know from old voyagers,! though 
their remains, from the numerous caverns of the island, have not 
EXTINcT STARLING OF REvNION, Fregilupus varius, adapted from figures by Daubenton, 
Levaillant, and others. Reduced, 
yet been determined, as those of the species above mentioned have 
been. A second Parrot, or rather Parrakeet, Palwornis exsul, still 
exists, but in very small numbers, and the only two specimens 
known to have been obtained are in the Museum at Cambridge. 
(ibis, 1872, p. 31 1875, p. 342, pl. vir.) 
With the examples of these Mascarene Islands before us, it is 
not without reason that we suppose a like fate to have befallen 
many of the feathered inhabitants of other places exposed to similar 
collection, the only skin believed to be in the British Islands. For a notice of 
other specimens see Salvadori, Atti Soc. Torino, xi. pp, 481-488. 
1 Proc. Zool. Soc. 1875, pp. 39-42. 
