APPENDIX 0, 173 



A. virgatus," with a wing-measurement of 7*40 inches. The 

 specimen is not sexed, neither is the sex noted on the drawings 

 and the bird may therefore be either a young male of the 

 larger or a young female of the smaller race. The locality 

 whence it was obtained is^ however^ recorded as Nepal, 

 and it may therefore very probably be a male of the larger 

 form. 



Under these circumstances it seems to me to be better to 

 apply Hodgson''s name of "affinis" to the larger race than 

 to coin for it a new subspecific designation; and I have 

 accordingly adopted that course in the present volume. 



Accipiter affinis is not the only geographical race which 

 apparently merits subspecific distinction from the typical 

 A. virgatus; the nearly allied Hawk of the Philippine 

 Islands (which should probably bear the subspecific name of 

 " manillensis, Meyen/' included in Mr. Sharpens 'Catalogue^ 

 amongst the synonyms of A. virgatus) is remarkable for 

 liaving the rufous colouring of the breast as strongly deve- 

 loped in the adult female as in the male, which I believe is 

 never the case in the typical A. virgatus^ ; and, in addition to 

 this, it also differs from A. virgatus in the somewhat browner 

 and less slaty tint of the upper surface, and in the dark gular 

 stripe being, in some adult specimens, much less distinctly 

 marked. 



The type specimen of Meyen^s " Nisus manillensis," which 

 was obtained, as its name indicates, at Manilla, is preserved 

 in the Berlin Museum, where it was examined by Mr. 

 Sharpe, who informs me that it is, in his opinion, an imma- 

 ture specimen of the race above referred to; and I adopt 

 the name accordingly, though I have not seen a specimen 

 altogether agreeing with Meyeu's figure, which probably 

 represents, and perhaps not very accurately, a stage of plu- 

 mage intermediate between that of the first year and that 

 which the bird finally assumes. 



^ Major Legge, writing of A. virgatus as fouud in Ceylon, where it 

 attains a very rufous plumage on the underparts, remarks that '' the female 

 appears never to acquire the uniform rufous breast of the male " (vide 

 'Birdsof Ceylon,'p. 28). 



