NOTES AND QUERIEs. 311 
Museum has been acquired from the well-known Riocour collection at 
Vitry-la-Ville. This famous collection, the work of three generations of 
the Counts de Riocour, consisted of a series of excellently mounted speci- 
mens, forming a choice little Museum which it would be hard to excel, 
The grandfather of the present Count was the founder of the collection, 
and was an intimate friend of Vieillot and the old French naturalists at 
the beginning of the century. Nearly all the specimens of that age are 
named by Vieillot, several of whose types are in the Riocour collection ; and 
Dr. Giinther has been successful in securing these also for the cabinets of 
the British Museum. A more interesting link with the past than this 
collection of the Counts de Riocour can scarcely be imagined, and we are 
glad to know that in the hands of Mr. Boucard, who is now the owner of 
the collection, it will receive the kindly consideration which such a famous 
Museum deserves. Writing in 1877, Dr. Hartlaub, in his ‘ Vogel von 
Madagascar’s,’ gives a list of the specimens of Fregilupus known to him, 
as follows :—Four in the Paris Museum (two stuffed and two in Spirits) ; 
one in the Caen Museum; one at Leyden (old and bad); one in the 
Stockholm Museum: one in the Museum at Florence; one in the Pisa 
Museum ; one in the Genoa Museum ; one in the Turin Museum ; and 
one in the collection of Baron de Selys-Longchamps. Sir Edward Newton 
likewise knew of two specimens in the Museum at Port Louis in Mauritius, 
and there is also the skeleton in Prof. Newton’s possession ; so that, with 
the one recently added to the British M useum, there are probably sixteen 
Specimens in existence. The Italian Museums received their specimens 
from the same source, viz., from Prof. Savi at Pisa: and some of those in 
other Museums are from the same source. Count Salvadori has published 
a very interesting article on the Fregilupus, in which he informs us that 
Savi received several specimens from a Corsican priest named Lombardi, 
and that these specimens were given away by Savi in the most generous 
spirit, as he appears to have retained only a single specimen for the Pisa 
Museum. Like other insular forms, the Fregilupus seems to have courted 
extermination by its very tameness and ignorance of danger. The late 
Mr. Pollen stated, in 1868, that the species had become go rare in Réunion 
that when he visited the island not one had been heard of for ten years, 
though it was still believed to survive in the forests of the interior. The 
old people who remembered when the birds were still common told him 
that they were go stupid and fearless that they could easily be knocked 
down with sticks. The extinct Necropsar rodericanus, Sclater, was the 
representative of Fregilupus in Rodriguez (cf. Giinther and E. Newton, 
Phil. Trans., vol. clxviii., Pp. 427), and its nearest living ally of the 
Fregilupus is probably Falculia of Madagascar, but there is also con- 
siderable affinity to Basileornis of Celebes and Ceram. An excellent 
account of the osteology of the genus was given by Dr. Murie in the 
