582 Dr. H. H. Giglioli on a 



alive into a lamp or lantern, not having a cage, and took 

 them down to Lannsei to my correspondent Signor Meloni, 

 who bought them while yet alive but in a bad plight with 

 soiled and rumpled plumage. He tried to revive them, but 

 was unsuccessful, so he skinned them and at once sent me the 

 two skins and fortunately the bodies also, which he had 

 dipped in alcohol. He had determined the sexes himself, 

 and is a reliable person j it was well that he did so, for when 

 I examined the bodies I was only able to confirm the sex in 

 the male, in the female the genital organs had been taken 

 out along with the viscera. 



The most striking character of these birds is the colour of 

 their plumage, for both male and female are entirely of a 

 sooty black, the tail-feathers alone shewing traces of the 

 orange-brown so characteristic of the genus Ruticilla. At 

 first sight I thought that they were specimens of R. titys, 

 dyed black ; but a closer inspection dispelled this idea at 

 once ; and I felt puzzled at the strange and unexpected case, 

 though I was fully convinced that the two birds before me 

 were specimens of a distinct and hitherto undescribed 

 species, for which I have suggested the appropriate name of 

 Ruticilla nigra *. 



The two skins were quite fresh, but in a rather rumpled 

 condition ; the orange-yellow of the inside of the mouth was 

 fresh and brilliant. The generic characters were patent, 

 and there could be no doubt that the birds belonged to the 

 genus Ruticilla. I had them mounted, and the pectoral arch 

 and sternum of each prepared ; I also got a sternum of an 

 adult male R. titys, for comparison. Finally, I wrote to 

 Signor Meloni asking him to get me, if possible, more 

 specimens of this singular bird, but up to the present he 

 has not been successful in doing so. The two specimens, 

 adult male and female, types of Ruticilla nigra, are now in 

 the Central Collection of Italian Vertebrates in the Royal 

 Zoological Museum at Florence, where they bear respectively 

 the Nos. 3906, 3907 of the Bird Series. 



I shall now give briefly the distinctive characters of this 



* See Bull. B. 0. C. xiii. p. 79 (1000). 



