4160 Birds. 



and the nature of the injury is a sufficient proof that the extensive 

 mortality among these creatures towards the end of summer, so often 

 remarked, is not, as some naturalists have imagined, the result of an 

 epidemic disease, but the consequence of meeting some powerful 

 enemy. 



Jonathan Couch. 



Polperro, November, 1853. 



List of Birds exposed for Sale in the Market at Rome, in January, 

 1853. By Philip Lutley Sclater, Esq., F.Z.S., &c. 



Being in Rome during the month of January of the present year, I 

 was in the habit of paying a daily visit to the bird-market in the 

 Piazza della Rotonda, to look over the contents of the stalls, and see 

 if I could find anything differing from what one is accustomed 

 to meet with in England. The Italians (as Mr. Waterton has 

 remarked) eat feathered fowl of every description, valuing them prin- 

 cipally in proportion to their magnitude. For the small birds, such 

 as sparrows, &c, the common price is one baiocco, or one halfpenny 

 English ; for tordi (Turdi) 2d. or Sd. a-piece ; for larger birds 

 as much as a paul {5d.), and so on ; and though the demand was 

 great, the supply seemed always abundant. 



I met with about a dozen species there that do not occur in 

 England : January, of course, is one of the worst months in the year 

 for considering Rome in an ornithological point of view, altogether 

 rather a novel way of regarding it; during the spring my Italian 

 friend told me that hoopoes, rollers, and all sorts of winged rarities 

 were abundant. The present list, however, though small and imper- 

 fect, may perhaps be useful, as showing that the northern limit 

 of some of the European summer migrants, such as Sylvia melanoce- 

 phala and atricapilla and Yunx torquilla is passed at Rome. It may 

 also possibly induce somebody staying longer than myself in the 

 " eternal city," and at a more favourable time of year, to turn his 

 attention to this subject, rather a neglected one at that place. 



I know of no published work on the birds of the Roman States. 

 Professor Savi's i Ornitologia Toscana ' is, in fact, the only standard 

 book on the Ornithology of this part of Italy. The Pisa Museum, 

 under his superintendence, is one of the best south of the Alps, and 



