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Show 1890.] MR. BOULENGER ON MOLGE VITTATA. 591 graph of this bird, which I have the pleasure of submitting. I am not aware that a similar individual variety of Pastor roseus has been described before. It differs from the 'typical bird in having the head and neck red, with the exception of a iew feathers on the crown and forehead and an irregular band round the neck, which are black, whereas in the normal bird the black extends from the red breast to the mandible." Mr. Boulenger drew attention to an early reference to the Syrian Newt, Molge vittata, Gray, and made the following remarks :- On recently perusing Thomas Shaw's ' Travels in Barbary and the Levant' (Oxford, 1738), I came across a figure of a Newt which, though of very unsatisfactory execution, is so far recognizable that I at once identified it as Molge vittata; and this determination is confirmed by reference to the text, which runs thus :-"The Skin-kore" (p. 375) ..." found in great numbers in a fountain near Bellmont [a few miles south of Tripoly], being of the Lizard kind, all over spotted, and differ from the common Water Efts in the extent and fashion of their fins. These, in the males, commence from the tip of the nose, and running the whole length of the neck and back to the very extremity of the tail, are continued afterwards along the under part of the tail quite to the navel; whereas the tails only of the female are finned. The body and tail of this animal are accounted to be great provocatives, and are therefore bought up by the Turks at an extravagant price." Except that the anus is taken for the navel, Shaw's description is perfectly correct, and it is interesting to find a record of this rare Newt a century prior to its first scientific description. It will be remembered that Molge vittata was regarded as a British animal up to the year 1877, when M. Lataste demonstrated in a remarkable paper that its habitat is Syria and Asia Minor. The locality where the Newt was found by Shaw affords no addition of importance to our knowledge of its distribution, it having been already recorded in Syria from the Lebanon Coast (Lataste) aud Beyrut (F. Muller, Boettger). Mr. J. J. Lister, F.Z.S., gave an account of his visit to the Phcenix Islands, South Pacific, in June and July 1889, during a cruise of H.M.S. ' Egeria,' and exhibited specimens of the birds and eggs obtained there. The following papers were read :- 40* |