426 MISS DOROTHEA BATE ON 



species recorded from the island, which nowadays has onl}- a very- 

 small indigenous avifauna. Numerous lists of these have been 

 published ; the latest and most complete is one wliich appeared 

 only last year (1915), and was compiled for the Malta University 

 Museum of Natural History by M. Giuseppe Despott, Curator- 

 of that Institution. This brings the record down to December 

 1914, and contains about 50 species not included in previous lists, 

 while the total conies to over 300. 



As might be expected, avian remains from Malta are far less 

 plentiful than those of associated mammals, and an exact deter- 

 mination is often further hampered by the fragmentary condition 

 of many of the specimens, and occasionally by lack of recent 

 material for comparison. It seems most probable that the birds 

 whose remains occur in the cavern deposits were, at least par- 

 tially, resident in the island. It is not surprising to find species 

 represented that nowadays only occur accidentally or on migra- 

 tion, for the whole character of the extinct Pleistocene fauna of 

 the island shows that the climate, vegetation, and probably the- 

 extent of the land surface, were very difierent from those obtaining 

 at the present day. The fact that anserine birds, including 

 several extinct species, are so largely represented leads one to- 

 suppose that they flourished when there were considerable tracts 

 of low-lying and marsh lands, probably before the final submer- 

 gence of the land (part of which is now known as the Medina 

 Bank) which connected Malta with Sicily and formed a northern 

 extension of the present Tripolitan coast-line. 



The present collection includes the distal half of a humerus 

 believed to be that of the Brent Goose {Branta hernicla), for it 

 only differs from recent specimens Avith which it has been com- 

 pared in being very slightly larger. Other limb-bones appear to 

 be those of the Barnacle Goose {B. leucojysis). The former species 

 has already been somewhat doubtfully recorded from Malta,, 

 while the writer has obtained remains of the latter from a 

 Pleistocene fissure in Menorca ; at the present day these geese 

 occur very sjjaringly in the Mediterranean, and probably then 

 only on migration. 



Remains of several species of Swans have alieady been obtained 

 from the Maltese cave-deposits, including the veiy large extinct 

 form, C?/^jms/<-f/coweH, described by Parker *. Of this bird he 

 wrote (p. 123) that it "was rather genei-alized in cliaiacter, 

 being somewhat of a goose, possessing as he did longer legs and 

 shorter toes than the typical swans. It would appear, however, 



that this bird had its wings of the full relative size : the 



immense ulna shows this." Later, he suggests that "perhaps he 

 was altogether more terrestrial," but I think this was meant as 

 opposed to swimming habits and did not refer to an}^ loss of 

 power of flight. The same author {loc. cit.) also described and' 

 figured some specimens believed to re2)resent C. mnsicus, at the- 



* Trans. Zool. Soc. vol. vi. pp. 119-124, pi. xxx. 



