4 



seemed to be adult birds, but two were larger with longer and more curved 

 bills, two smaller and with shorter and straighter beaks, so that they are 

 evidently two pairs. 



This bird seems to have become extirpated about the middle of the 

 last century. The late Monsieur Pollen wrote in 1868 (translated) : "This 

 species has become so rare that one did not hear them mentioned for a 

 dozen years. It has been destroyed in all the littoral districts, and even in 

 the mountains near the coast. Trustworthy persons, however, have assured us 

 that they must still exist in the forests of the interior, near St. Joseph. The 

 old Creoles told me that, in their youth, these birds were still common, and 

 that they were so stupid that one could kill them with sticks. They call this 

 bird the " Hoopoe." It is, therefore, not wrong what a distinguished 

 inhabitant of Reunion, Mr. A. Legras, wrote about this bird with the 

 following words : "The Hoopoe has become so rare that we have hardly 

 seen a dozen in our wanderings to discover birds; we were even grieved to 

 search for it in vain in our museum." 



We are certain that Fregilupus existed still on Reunion in 1835, as 

 Monsieur Desjardins, living on Mauritius, wrote in a manuscript formerly 

 belonging to the late Professor Milne- Edwards : "My friend, Marcelin Sauzier, 

 has sent me four alive from Bourbon in May, 1835. They eat everything. 

 Two have escaped some months afterwards, and it might well happen that 

 they will stock our forests." 



It seems, indeed, that specimens were killed in 1837 on Mauritius, 

 where they did not originally exist. Verreaux shot an example in Reunion 

 in 1832. 



The names "La Huppe du Cap" and " Uftupa madagascariensis" arose 

 out of the mistaken notions that this bird lived in South Africa or Madagascar, 

 but we know now that its real home was Reunion or Bourbon. 



WE ARE AWARE OF THE FOLLOWING SPECIMENS PRESERVED IN 



COLLECTIONS. 



2 stuffed ones, one in good, one in bad condition, and two in spirits, in the Paris Museum. 

 4 stuffed in Troyes. 



1 stuffed, from the Riocour collection, in the British Museum. 

 1 in the Florence Museum. 

 1 in Turin. 

 1 in Pisa. 



1, rather poor and old, in Leyden. 

 1 in Stockholm. 



1 in the Museum at Port Louis, on the island of Mauritius. 

 1 in the collection of the late Baron de Selys Longchamps. 

 1 in Genoa. 



