Appendices 145 
There do not exist, to our knowledge, more than two specimens 
of Mascarinus Duboisi , one in the Museum of Natural History 
at Paris, and the other in the Imperial Museum of Vienna. This 
last, it appears, is identical with an example formerly in the 
Museum Leverianum, to which Latham makes allusion. It is an 
individual affected by a partial albinism and offering some isolated 
white feathers on the back, the upper portion of the breast, the 
alar coverts, etc. 
It is in error that Dr. Hartlaub has mentioned 1 a third 
example of this species as being found in London. The Mascarin 
is not represented in the otherwise rich collections of the British 
Museum. 
From the time of Levaillant—that is to say, at the beginning 
of this century—the species was already very rare in zoological 
collections; nevertheless, there still existed in France three speci¬ 
mens, namely, one at the Museum that which still figures in the 
galleries of that establishment, one in Mauduyt’s, and the third in 
the Aubry collection. In spite of all our searches, we have not 
been able to discover what has become of these last two speci¬ 
mens, of which one, that of the Mauduyt Collection, possibly 
represented the remains of one of the Mascarins which were 
living at Paris about 1784, and of which the collaborator of the 
Encyclopedic 2 speaks. Another Mascarin was to be found alive at 
Paris about 1760, either at a shop or in a private house where 
Brisson was able to see and study it. At a much more recent 
date, in 1834, one of them was kept alive in the menagerie of 
the king of Bavaria, but this individual, which served as a model 
for the plate published by Hahn, 3 is very probably the last which 
has lived in Europe, if it were not the last surviving of its kind. 
For a long time the great island of Madagascar was looked 
upon as being the country of the Mascarin, but, as Messrs. 
Alfred and Edward Newton 4 have observed, this assertion rests 
solely on the statement of Levaillant. Indeed, everyone knows 
that the localities affixed by this last author are not always exact, 
and that he has several times quoted birds of Asia or America as 
natives of Africa, and vice versa . It is probable, besides, that in 
saying, 5 ‘ The Mascarin is found at Madagascar, and even, we are 
1 Journ. f. Ornithologie, i860, p. 107. 
2 Encyclopedic methodique, Ornithologies t. ii. p. 196. 
3 Ornith. Atlas, Papageien , pi. 39. 
4 Ibis, 1876, p. 286. 
5 Histoire naturelle des Perroquets , p. 172. 
K 
