558 On the Rubecola tytleri of Jameson. 



by Pelzeln, and the specimen agrees with the diagnosis of both 

 authors. In measurements it seems slightly smaller than its 

 congener. 



I am sorry I am not able to give a complete history of 

 my specimen. I obtained it by exchange from the Trustees 

 of the Derby Museum^ to whom it had come from the 

 Knowsley collection^ along with the famous White Por- 

 phyrio {cf. Rowley, Orn. Misc. i. p. 37). It is possible that 

 it may have been the example mentioned as having been in 

 the possession of Governor Hunter. It may have been in the 

 Leverian Museum, and thence obtained by the Earl of Derby. 

 But whencesoever derived by him, it is to be feared that it is 

 too probably the last relic of an extinct race. 



XLVIII. — Note on the Rubecola tytleri of Jameson. 

 By Wm. Eagle Clarke, F.L.S. 



At a meeting of the Wernerian Society of Natural History, 

 Edinburgh, on the 25th of April, 1835, Professor Jameson 

 exhibited and described what he believed to be a new bird, 

 to which he gave the name Rubecola tytleri. Of this species 

 no adequate description appears to have been published. In 

 the 'Memoirs of the Wernerian Society^ (vii. p. 487), and 

 in the ' Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal ' (xis. p. 214), 

 however, there appeared, in identical terms in both publica- 

 tions, an account of the " Proceedings " of the meeting, 

 and in this the bird is shortly described as agreeing " in the 

 grouping of the colours with the common Robin, yet, in the 

 form of the bill, it presented as it were a link between the 

 genus Rubecola and Phoenicura." The specimen is also 

 described as having been sent to the Edinburgh University 

 Museum by Lieut. Ty tier "from the Himalayan Mountains.^* 

 If this practically forgotten species had not been awarded 

 synonymic value in several works, if some doubt did not 

 exist as to its identity, and if it had not been, as I am now 

 able to state, associated with the wrong species, then Ru- 

 becola tytleri might have been allowed to remain in the 

 shades of obscurity in which Professor Jameson left it. 



