4/6 DR. MUR1E ON FREGILUPUS VARIUS. [June 16' 



TJpupa madagascariensis, Shaw, Zool. viii. p. 140 (1811). 



La Huppe du Cap {TJpupa capensis), Cuv. Reg. An. i. p. 407 

 (1817). 



Coracias tivouch, VieilL Nouv. Dict.'d'Hist. Nat. viii. p. 3 (1817). 



Coracia cristata, Vieill. Tab. End. 697 (1823). 



Pastor upupa, Wagler, Systema Avium, p. 90 (1827). 



Fregilupus capensis, Less. Traite Ornith.i. p. 324 (1831) ; Bonap. 

 Consp. Gen. Av. p. 88 (1850). 



Fregilupus madagascariensis, Reich. Hand. d. sp. Ornith. p. 321, 

 t. 596. fig. 4039 (1851) ; Hartlaub, Orn. Beitr. z. Faun. Madag. p. 53 

 (1861); Schleg. Recher. Faun. Madag. p. 104 (1868); Giebel, 

 Thesaurus, p. 627 (1874). 



Fregilupus lorbonicus, Vinson, Bull. Soc. Acclim. p. 627 (1868) ; 

 Giebel, Thesaurus, p. 627 (1874). 



Fregilupus varia, Gray, Hand-list of Birds, pt. ii. p. 28 (1870). 



Lophopsarus, Sundevall, Meth. Nat. Av. Disp. Tent. p. 40 

 (1873). 



The illustrations representing this rare Bourbon bird, as well as I 

 can judge, are limited to two originals, De Montbeillard's and Le- 

 vaillant's. Which is most to be depended on it is hard to say, 

 though the concurrent testimony of Hartlaub, in his description from 

 well-preserved skins, renders it probable that Levaillant's figure is, 

 on the whole, the most natural and truthful. Vieillot's figure, one 

 would suppose, is a modification of De Montbeillard's, but with a 

 bright blue iris, more highly worked in the feathering, and with a 

 wing-tint intermediate between De Montbeillard's slate-colour and 

 Levaillant's chestnut hue. It would seem as if Vieillot's artist had 

 taken the published engraving as his model, the colouring possibly 

 from a museum skin, and for the eyes was indebted to his imagina- 

 tion. Reichenbach's (a copy of course) is a very much reduced out- 

 line of Vieillot's, partly coloured after all three figures. Somehow or 

 other, none of the figures extant seem to me a natural representa- 

 tion ; there is a crude stiffness in the crest, and other detail by no 

 means life-like. 



Views promulgated and Historical Survey. — In Flacourt's* list 

 of the fauna of Madagascar a few words in mention of a bird named 

 " Tiuouch," or, according to modern typography, "Tivouch" (not 

 Tiwouch and Tirouch, as some subsequent writers spell it) are re- 

 garded as the earliest notice of our form. But the identification of 

 this with that now known as Fregilupus is very obscure ; and some 

 ornithologists (see Newton's remarks, p. 4/9) have grave doubts 

 thereon. Buffon's t " La Huppe noire et blanche, du Cap De Bonne 



* The following is literally all said by the old voyageur and Directeur general 

 de la Compagnie Francois de l'Orient : — " Tiuouch c'est la huppe, il est tachete 

 de noir et de gris, et a une belle crest de plume." — De Flaeourt, ' Hist. d. 1. 

 Grande isle Madagascar,' Paris (1058), p. 166. 



t This gifted and florid writer, in his ' Histoire Naturelle,' says : — " Cet 

 oiseau differe de notre huppe et de ses varices, par sa grosseur; par son 

 bee plus court et plus pointu ; par sa huppe, dont les plumes sont un peu 

 moins hautes a proportion, d'ailleurs effilees a peu pres comme celles du coucou 

 hupp6 de Madagascar; par le nombre des pennes de sa queue, car elle en a 



