110 



LIST OF DIURNAL BIRD8 OP PKEY. 



^ This plate represents the type specimen of F. hendcrsoni, Hume { = 7nilvipcs, Hodg- 

 son), the supposed validity of which species, as distinct from G. saker, I have discussed 

 in my Notes, and would here merely refer to what I have there written. Two of the 

 specimens in the Norwich Museum, which are there catalogued under the head of 

 F. saker, are in the plumage which has been separated imder the specific titles of 

 " milvipes^' and "hendcrsoni," and a third specimen is partially in a similar dress. 



^ Here figured under the name of " Falco polyagrus ;" as to the hinder figui-e on this 

 plate, see Mr. Eidgway's letter quoted below. 



' This species is described in the 'Laud Birds of N. America' mader the designation 

 of "Falco lanariiis, xm'. pohjagms," and in the 'Birds of the North West' under that 

 of " Faico mexicanus, var. polyagrusr I avail myself of the kind permission of 

 Mr. Eidgway to quote the following extract from a letter he was so good as to write me 

 on 23rd January, 1883 : — " Since I last wrote you I have had the pleasure of making 

 a reexamination of the Falcon named '■ Hierofalco lanarius, var. mexicanus' in my 

 ' Catalogue of the Falconidte in the collection of the Boston Society of Natural History' 

 (p. 44) ; very much to my surprise it proves to be nothing more than a small-sized 

 young male of the ordinary F. p)ob/agriis. differing in no respect except slightly smaller 

 dimensions from examples in the National-Museum collection from Arizona and Lower 



California I have now no doubt whatever of the existence of only one species 



or race of this group in the Western United States and in Mexico, for which the name 



of mexicanus should be used Moreover, the original ' polyagrus' of Cassin 



was a composite species, including, besides the F. mexicanus, the dark race of the 

 Peregrine which, in 1873, I characterized as Falco communis, var. j^ealei ; in fact part 

 of Oassin's description and one of the figures of his plate are taken from the identical 

 specimen which I afterwards made the type of my new race." 



