6
NECROPSAR LEGUATIFORBES.
(Plate 2, Fig. 3.)
- Necropsar leguati Forbes, Bull. Liverp. Mus. I, p. 34, pl. Sturnidae I (1897-1898).
Dr. Forbes' description is as follows:—"General colour white everywhere, 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 | 31.5 " |
I should have been inclined to consider this bird an albinistic specimen of the bird described in "Relation de l'Ile 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 Mât 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.
