NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 6 



doubtedly the species usually regarded as S. Bacha, and variously labelled as 

 Asiatic and African, that I am not quite sure that Bacha is not an African 

 species, whatever else may have been advanced in any other behalf. 



There are in the Academy Museum, several specimens of the bird usually 

 regarded as F. bacha, which have been labelled in Europe as from South 

 Africa. If I committed an error, it was not because I relied on those la- 

 bels, of the authority of which I know nothing, nor can now discover any- 

 thing, but that I took them only as confirmatory of an impression that F. 

 bacha was an African as well as Asiatic species. If in error, I was directly 

 misled by the statement of that great naturalist, Temminck, in PI. Col., i. 

 liv. iv., to this effect : " La Buse bacha, Falco bacha, des catalogues me'tho- 

 diques, est re"pandue non-seulement dans l'Afrique m6ridionale, mais on la 

 trouve aussi dans l'lndie, a Java et a Sumatra." Statements of a similar 

 import I have seen elsewhere. It is, of course, possible, that Temminck 

 and others may have relied solely on Le Vaillant without other information. 



But, notwithstanding the impeachment of the veracity of Le Vaillant, and 

 the opinions on that point that have, in some instances, been freely ex- 

 pressed, and seem to be rather fashionable, I shall not admit, I beg to say, 

 either that Spilornis Bacha is not an African bird, or that Le Vaillant's ac- 

 count of the species to which he applied the name Bacha is not reliable, 

 without further occasion. Those opinions I do by no means participate in 

 nor approve, and instances of the expression of such have occurred, which 

 present themselves to me in no other aspect than that of unqualified imper- 

 tinence, and as demonstrative not only of deficient information on the part 

 of the writers, but of a disposition to seek a short and easy road to notoriety 

 by rude assaults on the reputation of a great practical, and most useful natu- 

 ralist, whose only faults were an enthusiastic devotion to Natural History, 

 and failure to elicit the appreciation of men of dissimilar temperament and 

 greater stolidity of ambition. The fair fame of Le Vaillant has passed the 

 ordeal of one-half century productive of great naturalists, and its impeach- 

 ment will not, I suspect, blazon the reputation of any one likely to be such 

 in the present cycle of similar period ! , 



There are now before me, a series of fourteen specimens of the bird pur- 

 porting to be F. Bacha, from the Academy Museum, about half of which are 

 in various stages of young plumage, and of the whole of which scarcely 

 any two are precisely alike in colors. One stage of young plumage is un- 

 doubtedly that given by Temminck, under the name li Falco albidas, Cuv.," in 

 PI. Col., 19. As stated above, a few of these specimens have been labelled 

 in Europe as coming from " South Africa," of the validity of which 

 locality I know nothing. Other specimens are undoubtedly Asiatic, and, 

 though differing from each other in some particulars of character, and, per- 

 haps, representing several supposed species, they are all probably to be re- 

 garded as that entitled to the name Spilornis cheela, (Daudin). Several 

 specimens so nearly resemble Temminck's figure of F. albidus, above cited, 

 that they cannot be mistaken for any other species. I do not clearly recog- 

 nise the nearly allied species, though they may be quite valid, especially F. 

 bido, Horsfield. 



Le Vaillant's figure of " Le Bacha," Ois. d'Afr., i. pi. 15, does assuredly 

 bear a strong resemblance to the Asiatic bird, and I am not prepared to deny 

 that it represents either an Indian or Malayan species ; but it is also a fact, 

 that the young bird from Mr. DuChaillu's collection bears a most unmistake- 

 able resemblance to young birds, undoubtedly Asiatic, in the Academy Mu- 

 seum. On inspection and comparison of any of the Asiatic with the African 

 specimen, few naturalists would hesitate in pronouncing them identical, and 

 the conclusion is most directly indicated that, if this African specimen is not 

 of the same species as the Asiatic specimens, it is of a very nearly allied 

 species. I regard it as possible, that Le Vaillant may have given a figure 

 1865.] 



