146 LIST OF DIUENAL BIRDS OF PREY. 



APPENDIX H. 



On the Genus Buteola. 



The genus Buteola has^ as stated by Mr. Sharpe at p. 158 

 of his Catalogue^ a '^distinct central tubercle^' in the nostril, 

 which I think is a sufficient ground for separating it from 

 the genus Buteo, even when the latter term is used in the 

 somewhat wide sense in which I have employed it ; this 

 tubercle is^, however^ usually destroyed in the preparation of 

 the skin^ and is^ in consequence, imperceptible in the 

 majority of specimens. 



As regards the melanistic phase of Buteola brachyura, I 

 think that its existence is proved by a completely melanistic 

 male from Veragua in the possession of Messrs. Salvin and 

 Godman, in which the nostrils most distinctly show the 

 characteristic central tubercle. 



In the "^Ibis' for 1876 I endeavoured (at pp. 477 and 478) 

 to define the differences which I then thought might be 

 traced between Buteo fuUginosus, Sclater, and the melanistic 

 state of Buteola brachyura ; but I now believe that these dif- 

 ferences are merely individual and not specific, and that this 

 being so, Buteo fulif/inosus must sink into a synonym of 

 Buteola brachyura : this view, in which Mr. Salvin concurs, 

 is more fully explained in a letter written by me, which will 

 be found quoted in Mr. Ridgway^s paper on this subject, 

 published in the 6th volume of the ' Bulletin of the Nuttall 

 Ornithological Club,^ p. 207. Mr. Ridgway, in this article, 

 mentions that he had never seen a specimen of B. brachyura 

 in which the coloration was intermediate between the normal 

 and the melanistic plumage ; and I may therefore mention 

 that such a specimen, a male from Jalapa in Mexico, exists 

 in the Norwich Museum : this example is melanistic through- 



