70 BULLETIN 15 3, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Hartert ^® has shown that Accipiter ferox Gmelin ^^ is not a Buteo 

 but probably a synonym of Circaetus gallicus, and consequently it 

 must be abandoned for the present species, currently known as 

 Buteo ferox. Vieillot's name Circus fectoralis *° being uncertain, 

 the next available name is Falco rufirms. 



Sclater lists this species *^ under the more widely known name 

 ferox, but, as indicated above, this is wrong. The name ruflnus was 

 originally applied to the rufescent phase of this hawk on the as- 

 sumption that it was specifically distinct from the darker bird 

 then known as ferox. As late as 1904 Neumann •*- considered the 

 two racially distinct. I have not sufficient material to investigate 

 this question, but follow Zedlitz,*^ Hartert,^* Sclater,*^ and others 

 in considering them merely color phases. 



This buzzard breeds in southeastern Europe, western Asia, and in 

 Egypt, and winters south to Ethiopia and the Sudan. It does not 

 occur as far south as the southern limits of either of the latter two. 

 Heuglin writes that it is a winter visitor along the Nile south to the 

 Abyssinian lowlands, eastern Sennar, Taka, and Mareb, in which 

 regions it arrives in August and September and leaves for the north 

 in March. Sclater and Praed *^ say that it winters only in the 

 northern portion of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. The westernmost 

 part of the winter range appears to be north and central Darfur, 

 where, according to Lynes,^" it is a common bird in the Jebel Marra 

 Mountains, « * * * ^j^^j perhaps more widely distributed." 

 This bird appears to be less common in Ethiopia than in the Sudan, 

 but this is probably to be accounted for by the greater altitude of 

 the former country. It would perhaps be more accurate to describe 

 the winter range of this hawk as comprising the northern Sudan 

 from Darfur east to the valleys of the White and Blue Nile, as the 

 Ethiopian records are all from places in the drainage basin of the 

 Nile system. 



BUTEO RUFOFUSCUS AUGUK (Riippell) 



Falco {Buteo) auyur RtJpPELL, N. Wirbeltli., Vog., p. 38, pi. 16, 1S36 : Abys- 

 sinia (Ethiopia). 



Spechnens collected: 



Male, Adis Abeba, Ethiopia, December 31, 1911. 



Male, Alaltu, Ethiopia, January 15, 1912. 



■■* ViJg. pal. Fauna, vol. 2, p. 11S9, footnote. 



=^ Nov. Comm. Acad. Petrop., vol. 15, p. 442, pi. 10, 1771 : Astrakan. 



" N. Diet., vol. 4, p. 477, 1816. 



" Syst. Avium Ethiop., 1924, p. 06. 



^2Journ. f. Ornlth., vol. 53, 1904, p. 366. 



« Idem, 1910, p. 383. 



^' ^■ogel pal. Fauna, p. 1115. 



<s Syst. Avium Ethiop., 1924, p. 66. 



*« Ibis, 1919, p. 699. 



«'Idcm, 1925, p. 408. 



