4 COMMODORE HOSKINS ON THE " MOORUK." [Jail. 14, 



its former existence in the island that he met with was the stuffed 

 skin which, as I have already said, is in the Museum there. 



" Coming to later authors, Mr. G. R. Gray, who, in 1840, had 

 proposed (List Gen. B. p. 58) the generic separation of this pigeon 

 from others of the family under the name oi Alectroenas (which, as 

 Agassiz subsequently pointed out, should be written Alectorcenas), in 

 1855 marked it as represented in the British Museum (Cat. Gen. 

 B. p. 97) ; and so it appeared in his ' Hand-hst' (ii. p. 228) ; but I 

 have not been able to find that the British Museum ever possessed 

 a specimen, and no mention is made of it in his ' List of Specimens ' 

 of Columbai of 1856. Li 18C8 MM. Pollen and Van Dam entered 

 this species (Rech. Faune de Madag. p. 159) as belonging to Mada- 

 gascar alone, without even giving it a place in the Mauritian list ; 

 and in 18/7 Dr. Hartlaub, in his most recent work (Vtig. Madag. 

 u. s. w. p. 264), though his other statements are right enough, was 

 misled into the error of saying that • Fossile Reste dieser Art sam- 

 melte Herr Henry H. Slater.' 



" Allied to Alectorcenas nitidissima are three species which still 

 survive and are natives of Madagascar, the Comoros, and the Seychelles. 

 All have been treated by Dr. Hartlaub as congeneric ; and they will 

 probably stand as A. madagascariensis (Linn.), A. sganzini (Verr.), 

 and A. pvlcherrima (Scop.). It is possible that Rodriguez once 

 possessed another member of the group, the Columba rodericana of 

 M. A. Milne-Edwards ; but we have not received sufficient remains 

 of that species (which is certainly extinct) to decide the point, and 

 the older voyagers give us no help here as they do in so many other 

 cases. I shall not trouble you with commenting on the nomenclature 

 of any of these species. That which is the subject of my remarks 

 has had a sufficient number of useless synonyms applied to it ; but on 

 the whole they have all been fortunate, and there is no difficulty in 

 determining the names they should bear, though both the generic 

 and specific appellation of Alectorcenas nitidissima were conferred by 

 writers who had never set eyes on a specimen. 



" To conclude, I may state ( 1 ) that there is no trustworthy evidence 

 of Alectorcenas nitidissijna having inhabited any other locahty than 

 Mauritius, to which it was therefore in all probability peculiar, (2) 

 that it is now wholly extinct, and (3) that remains of only three speci- 

 mens are known to have been preserved." 



The following extract was read from a letter addressed bv Commo- 

 dore Hoskins, of H.M.S. 'Wolverine/ dated Sydney, Oct'. 9, 1878, 

 to Capt. Evans, C.B., Hydrographer to the Admiralty : — 



" It is some time since you asked me to obtain for Mr. Sclater of 

 the Zoological Society information as to the northern limit of the 

 'Mooruk,' and whether it is found in New Ireland. 



" I instructed Lieut. Home, commanding the ' Sandfly,' to do all in 

 his power to solve the point ; and I have just heard from him at Bris- 

 bane (which he reached on his way down from the islands) that, 

 having taken Mr. Brown, the Wesleyan Missionary, and some native 

 interpreters on board in Blanche Bay, he proceeded to visit the 



