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Show 476 DR. M U R I E O N F R E G I L U P U S VARIUS. [June 16< Upupa madagascariensis, Shaw, Zool. viii. p. 140 (1811). La Huppe du Cap (Upupa capensis), Cuv. Reg. An. i. p. 407 (1817). Coracias tivouch, Vieill. Nouv. Dict.'d'Hist. Nat. viii. p. 3(1817). Coracia cristata, Vieill. Tab. End. 697 (1823). Pastor upupa, Wagler, Systema Avium, p. 90 (1827). Fregilupus capensis, Less. Traite Ornith. i. p. 324 (1831) ; Bonap. Consp. Gen. Av. p. 88 (1850). Fregilupus madagascariensis, Reich. Hand. d. sp. Ornith. p. 321, t. 596. fig. 4039(1851); Hartlaub, Orn. Beitr. z. Faun. Madag. p. 53 (1861); Schleg. Recher. Faun. Madag. p. 104 (1868); Giebel, Thesaurus, p. 627 (1874). Fregilupus borbonicus, Vinson, Bull. Soc. Acclim. p. 627 (1868) ; Giebel, Thesaurus, p. 627 (1874). Fregilupus varia, Gray, Hand-list of Birds, pt. ii. p. 28 (1870). Lophopsarus, Sundevall, Meth. Nat. Av. Disp. Tent. p. 40 (1873). The illustrations representing this rare Bourbon bird, as well as I can judge, are limited to two originals, De Montbeillard's and Levaillant's. Which is most to be depended on it is hard to say, though the concurrent testimony of Hartlaub, in his description from well-preserved skins, renders it probable that Levaillant's figure is, on the whole, the most natural and truthful. Vieillot's figure, one would suppose, is a modification of De Montbeillard's, but with a bright blue iris, more highly worked in the feathering, and with a wing-tint intermediate between De Montbeillard's slate-colour and Levaillant's chestnut hue. It would seem as if Vieillot's artist had taken the published engraving as his model, the colouring possibly from a museum skin, and for the eyes was indebted to his imagination. Reichenbach's (a copy of course) is a very much reduced outline of Vieillot's, partly coloured after all three figures. Somehow or other, none of the figures extant seem to m e a natural representation ; there is a crude stiffness in the crest, and other detail by no means life-like. Fiews promulgated and Historical Survey.-In Flacourt's* list of the fauna of Madagascar a few words in mention of a bird named " Tiuouch," or, according to modern typography, " Tivouch " (not Tinouch and Tirouch, as some subsequent writers spell it) are regarded as the earliest notice of our form. But the identification of this with that now known as Fregilupus is very obscure; and some ornithologists (see Newton's remarks, p. 479) have grave doubts thereon. Buffon's f " La Huppe noire et blanche, du Cap De Bonne * The following is literally all said by the old voyageur and Directeur general de la Compagnie Francois de l'Orient:-" Tiuouch c'est la huppe, il est tachete de noir et de gris, et a une belle crest de plume."-De Flacourt, ' Hist. d. 1. Grande isle Madagascar,' Paris (1658), p. 166. t This gifted and florid writer, in his ' Histoire Naturelle,' says:-" Cet oiseau differe de notre huppe et de ses varices, par sa grosseur; par son bee plus court et plus pointu ; par sa huppe, dont les plumes sont un peu moins hautes a proportion, d'ailleurs effilees a peu pres comme celleB du coucou huppe" de Madagascar; par le nombre des pennes de sa queue, car elle en a |
