Extinct Birds Part 33

Quite extinct. Only known from descriptions and osseous remains. One tibia in the Tring Museum.

Habitat: Rodriguez Island.

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PENNULA DOLE.

_Pennula_ Dole, Hawaiian Alman. 1879 p. 54 (Reprint in Ibis 1880 p.

241).

I believe that the genus _Pennula_ should be placed near _Porzanula_, but its wings are softer, the rectrices are next to invisible, but can be felt, as they have stiff shafts and are about 13 mm. long, though being entirely hidden by the soft tail-coverts. The tibia is bare for about 7 mm., the metatarsus covered in front with nearly a dozen transverse, very distinct scales, and distinctly reticulated behind. The bill much as in _Poliolimnas_ and _Porzanula_.

Two species can be recognized: _Pennula millsi_, with a uniform upper surface, and _Pennula sandwichensis_, with a distinctly spotted upper side.

Both forms are now extinct.

PENNULA MILLSI DOLE.

MOHO OF THE NATIVES.

(PLATE 26, FIG. 3.)

_Pennula millei_ (misprint for _millsi_) Dole, Hawaiian Almanac 1879 p.

54 (reprint in Ibis 1880 p. 241. "Uplands of Hawaii: named in honour of Mr. Mills, spec. in Mills's Coll., nearly extinct"); Rothsch., Avif.

Laysan, etc., p. 241 pl. LXXVI.

_Pennula ecaudata_ apud Wilson & Evans, Aves. Hawaii., part V, text and plate.

All we know of this bird are the five specimens caught by an old native bird-catcher named Hawelu for the late Mr. Mills of Hawaii. Two of these are now in my Museum, one in Cambridge, and two in the Bishop-Pauahi Museum in Honolulu. There can be no doubt that this bird is now extinct. All recent attempts to find specimens have been futile. Mr. Palmer, whom I sent a specially trained dog, also failed to find even traces of it. It lived formerly in the country between Hilo and the volcano Kilauea, in places where thick gra.s.s, _Vaccinium_ and _Dianella_, forms the thickest cover possible. In former times the "Moho" was a dainty on the tables of the Hawaiian kings, but its disappearance is probably due to the introduction of the obnoxious mongoose and to bush fires. {138}

PENNULA SANDWICHENSIS (GM.)

(PLATE 26, FIG. 2.)

_Rallus Sandwichensis_ Gmelin, Syst. Nat I p. 717 (1788--ex Latham!

"Habitat exilis in insulis Sandwich").

_Pennula Wilsoni_ Finsch, Notes Leyden Mus. XX p. 77 (1898--Finsch explains that the specimen in the Leyden Museum is not the type of Latham--and therefore of Gmelin's name--and therefore renames it).

For full synonymy and explanations of name, etc., cf. Avifauna of Laysan, p. 239, 240 and 243, also plate LXXVI.

Latham's description--from which Gmelin's diagnosis was taken--distinctly says that the feathers were "darkest in the middle," and in the Index Ornith. "supra maculis obscuris." Moreover, the unpublished drawing of Ellis, well reproduced in Mr. Scott Wilson's book, shows beyond doubt the ident.i.ty of the bird of the old authors with the specimen in the Leyden Museum.

The Leyden specimen is all we are acquainted with, and of the history of this bird we know nothing but Latham's statement that it came from the Sandwich Islands.

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TRIBONYX ROBERTI ANDREWS.

_Tribonyx roberti Andrews_, Ibis 1897, p. 356, pl. IX, figs 4-7.

This bird is described from an imperfect pelvis, a perfect left tibio-tarsus and a femur. The pelvis differs from that of _T. mortieri_ in not having the deep depression in the ilia in front of the acetabulum and above the pectineal process. It also differs in having a rather wider pelvic escutcheon and wider renal fossal, and the supra-acetabular ridges of the ilia are smaller than in the Australian bird. The beautifully-preserved left tibia differs from that of _T. mortieri_ in having the intercondylar groove wider and shallower, the inner condyle less ma.s.sive, thus making the difference between the inner and outer condyle more marked; _T. roberti_ also has the shaft immediately above the extensor bridge wider, the bridge itself less oblique, and the fibular crest is longer.

The measurements are:--

_Pelvis._

Length of Ilium 82 mm. approx.

Least width of acetabular region of Pelvis 14 "

Width at Ant.i.trochanter 40 "

Width at anterior angle of Pelvic Escutcheon 36 "

Width at Posterior angle of Pelvic Escutcheon 40 "

Length of Sacrum 68 "

_Tibia._

Length 143 mm.

Width at distal extremity 12 "

Width at middle of shaft 7 "

_Femur._

Length 83 mm.

Width at distal extremity 17 "

Width at middle of shaft 7 "

Habitat: Sirabe in C. Madagascar.

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NOTORNIS OWEN.

Differs from _Porphyrio_ by the secondaries being nearly as long as the primaries, and the wing-coverts more or less elongated, sometimes nearly hiding the quills.

Type: _Notornis mantelli_.

NOTORNIS MANTELLI OWEN.