Birds observed in the Islands of Malta and Gozo. 459 



XXXVI. — Second Appendix to a List of Birds observed in 

 the Islands of Malta and Gozo *. By Charles A. "Wright, 

 C.M.Z.S. 



(Plate X.) 



The expression used by Gatke, with reference to the European 

 Ornisj that " its materials are endless/' would seem to be very 

 applicable to Malta, as shown by the additions which, from time 

 to time, occur, to enrich the ornithology of this and its sister 

 island. An illustration of this kind is afforded in the fact that, 

 since the publication of my " List" in ^ The Ibis^ for January and 

 April, 1864, I have already had to make some additions, and I 

 am now again called upon to add two other* interesting species 

 to those recorded, as well as to note the reappearance of a third 

 remarkable bird, an inhabitant of the distant continent of Asia. 



256. ChvEtusia leucura (Lichtenstein), Vanellus villotai, 

 Audouin. (White-tailed Plover.) (Plate X.) 



On the 18th October, 1864, in one of my frequent visits to 

 the game-stalls in the Malta market, my attention was struck 

 by a strange-looking bird, which was offered to me for sale as 

 a Cream-coloured Courser — a somewhat rare visitor, but of which 

 I had picked up, in the course of several years, from the same 

 stall, one or two specimens, and a few others from other sources. 

 This it certainly was not. On consulting such books as I had 

 at hand, I could find nothing answering to it in Bree's ' Birds 

 of Europe ' or Degland^s ' Ornithologie Europeenne 'f; and being 

 sure it did not belong to any species hitherto observed in Eng- 

 land, I was altogether at a loss to know what it was. The short 

 description, in ^ The Ibis,' for 1859 (pp. 53, 53), of Vanellus 

 leucurus, given by Mr. E. C. Taylor, in his "Ornithological Remi- 

 niscences of Egypt,'^ to which I subsequently referred, was suffi- 

 cient to satisfy me that I was in possession of one of these birds, 

 so rare in European collections that Mr. Taylor observes there 

 is but one, unnamed, footless specimen in the British Museum ; 

 and in the Paris Museum, at the Jardin des Plantes, he could 



* See 'Ibis,' 1864, p. 291. 



t The Moutpellier specimen, afterwards mentioned by Mr. Wright, is 

 referred by Degland (ii. p. 87) to Pluvianus melanocephalus. Cf. Bonap. 

 Rev. Crit. p. 82.— Ed. 



