Birds observed in Italian Museums. 453 



from Siberia, Japan, China, and India, and I have met with 

 several individuals difficult to class. These lead me to think 

 that here also the number of true species is not great, but that, 

 as in Europe, local races exist which, by accidental crossing, pro- 

 duce intermediate mules, difficult to class. 



The exotic bird ticketted in the Pisa Museum with the name of 

 Mormon gtacialis is M. corniculatus. I have seen the same thing 

 in the collection of M. Marchand, at Chartres. M. corniculatus 

 is also the species described by M. Gerbe under the name of 

 M. glacialis in the second edition of Degland^s work *. I have 

 examined these three specimens, which can be easily distin- 

 guished by the direction of the grooves on the bill and the black 

 collar in front touching the base of the bill. 



Prof. Savi, who, more than forty years ago, announced the 

 appearance in Europe of i/w'w«fZo daurica, L. [H. alpestris, Pall.), 

 was right in his determination. Having examined many ex- 

 amples from Asia and the south of Europe, I am convinced that 

 H. rufula, Temm., does not differ, even as a race, from the for- 

 mer, contrary to what I have advanced in my notice of the sub- 

 genus Cecropis published in 1855 in the ' Bulletin ' of the Bel- 

 gian Academy. 



Throughout my travels I everywhere collected information 

 respecting the Columha turricola of Bonaparte, — a species which, 

 according to him, is very common in the old ruined towers of 

 Tuscany, and differs from C. livia in that the rump is not white 

 above, but bluish, as in C. oenas. The naturalists of Turin, 

 Milan and Florence whom I have consulted, do not recognize 



* [Om. Eur. 2me ed. ii. p. GOO. There is a slight mistake here. M. 

 Gerbe describes his bird under the name oi Fratercuta cortiicidata, and very 

 justly says it is identical with that figured by Mr. Gould under the name 

 oi M. ghicmlis ; but then M. Gerbe proceeds to say {torn. cit. p. 611) that 

 the F. r/ktcialis of Leach is probably only an individual variety of F. arctica, 

 and that F. corniculata occurs not only in Kamtschatka, but also in Spits- 

 bergen, Greenland, Newfoundland, and Norway. That F. glacialis is not 

 an individual variety is very evident from the fact of all the Spitsbergen 

 birds belonging to that form — whether it is to be regarded as a good 

 species is a question on which naturalists must please themselves ; but it is 

 entirely distinct from F. cvrnicidata, which last, we feel sure, has never 

 occurred in Europe {cf. Ibis, 1865, pp. 213, 521-524).— Ed.] 



