6 



NECROPSAR LEGUATI FORBES. 



(Plate 2, Fig. 3.) 

 Necropsar leguati Forbes, Bull. Liverp. Mus. I, p. 34, pi. Sturnidae I (1897-1898). 



DR. FORBES' description is as follows : — " General colour white every- 

 where, except on the outer webs of distal half of the primaries and 

 secondaries and the outer webs of the newly moulted and both webs 

 of the unmoulted rectrices, which are marked with lighter or darker 

 ferruginous." 



Dr. Forbes then gives an exhaustive description of the structure, to 

 which I refer my readers, and the following measurements : — 



Culmen 32 mm. 



Wing 109 „ 



Tail 98 „ 



Tarsus 315,, 



I should have been inclined to consider this bird an albinistic specimen 

 of the bird described in " Relation de File Rodrigue," but for the fact that 

 the tibia of Necropsar rodericanus is 52-59 mm. in length, while this is only 

 46 mm. in length, while the metatarsus measures 31*5 mm. as opposed to 

 36-41 mm. in N. rodericanus. I cannot accept the theory that this is the 

 Islet au Mat bird, and therefore different from N. rodericanus, as the islet 

 is too close to Rodriguez to have had a different starling. I therefore 

 believe this bird to have been an albinistic specimen of the Mauritius species 

 of Necropsar, for there can be little doubt that it is albinistic, as the 

 ferruginous colour is much stronger on one wing than on the other ; and I 

 conclude that the colour in the wings and tail in normal specimens was 

 black like the Rodriguez bird, and that N. leguati was a close ally of 

 N. rodericanus, from which it differed principally in its much smaller size. 



Habitat doubtful. — The type specimen bears Lord Derby's Museum 

 number, 1792, and a label of Verreaux giving Madagascar as the habitat, 

 which is certainly erroneous. 



