Types of birds in the Tring Museum

Abstract

Kleinschmidt and I began to make a list of the Brehm Collection, but we did not continue our work beyond the forms of Corvus coraxz, as other pressing work kept us otherwise occupied, and our far-distant homes made mutual discussions almost impossible.Our article was prefaced by an Introduction written by myself.In it occurs a mistake, which must be rectified.On page 39 I said that the Great Auk which once formed part of the Brehm Collection was long ago exchanged for some rare old '' Dresden"' cups.This story has been current for some time, and was told me by Mr. Kleinschmidt, who had good reason to believe it; but it is entirely unfounded.The Great Auk in the Brehm Collection was sold in 1867, through the kind offices of Dr. Otto Finsch, to the King of Italy, who kept it 'in his private collection in the '' Veneria Reale."Later on it passed from there into the Rome Museum.where it is now preserved.Before leaving Germany it was restuffed by the late taxidermist Schwerdtfeger in Bremen.The fixing of the types in the Brehm Collection has not been easy.In Brehm's times it was not usual to select types when new species were described, and very few ornithologists marked them as such on the labels.Only in a few eases Brehm put on the labels '"' Urexemplar."In the more elaborate articles in the Isis and Nawmannia, however, he frequently quoted the dates when he obtained his new birds; but comparatively seldom was it possible to make out * In my synonymy, Vég.pal, Fauna, i. p. 117, the dates of publication of the names media and pinetorum must be altered : Crucirostra media Brohm, Isis, 1827.p. 710.

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