44 BULLETIN 17 2, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



BAZA LEUPHOTES BURMANA W. L. Sclater 



Baza lophoies burmana W. L. Sclater, Bull. Brit. Orn. Club, vol. 41, p. 3, 1920 

 (Maliwoon, Tenasserim) . 



One male, Kao Bantad, Krat, December 23, 1929; one male, Kao 

 Soi Dao, Trang, January 12, 1934. 



The following specimens collected by Dr. W. L. Abbott are in 

 the United States National Museum: One male and one female, 

 Trang (Lay Song Hong, December 3, 1896, and Trang, February 13, 

 1897); five males and three females, Sullivan Island, Mergui Archi- 

 pelago, January 29-February 2, 1900. In addition, there is a female 

 from Lat Bua Kao, eastern Siam, collected on October 11, 1916, by 

 C. Boden Kloss, and an immature male from Me Taqua, Raheng, 

 western Siam, collected on June 13, 1924, by K. G. Gairdner. 



Dr. Abbott describes the soft parts as follows: Iris dark bro^vn; 

 bill and cere leaden; tip of bill dark horn brown; feet leaden, claws 

 black. He notes the stomach contents of the eight specimens col- 

 lected on Sullivan Island to consist exclusively of insects. Evidently 

 it is a very useful bird. 



The male from Krat has the pectoral band below the white crescent 

 chocolate, and a female from Sullivan Island approaches it; in the 

 remainder of the series the pectoral band is black. 



This race is apparently not uncommon throughout Siam proper and 

 in the Malay Peninsula. The species ranges from Assam south of the 

 Brahmaputra south to Burma and Siam and east to Cochinchina, 

 Cambodia, Annam, Laos, southern China, and south to Peninsular 

 Siam. 



This is a beautiful crested hawk. It is black, with a broad, white 

 crescent on the jugulum, then a narrow black pectoral band, the breast 

 and sides banded chocolate and cream-buff; the belly and under tail 

 coverts black, a chocolate patch at the base of the inner primaries, 

 with a bold white mark near the tip of the secondaries, the tertials 

 white at the base, showing through. 



This species is the type of the genus Baza Hodgson, and in my 

 opinion the genus is monotypic. It differs from Lophoastur in its 

 proportionally longer crest and longer wings, weaker feet and bill, 

 and third outer primary longest instead of the fourth. 



The other form of the species. Baza leuphofes leuphoies ranges to 

 the northward and westward of burmana and is said to differ from 

 burmana in having the band across the chest rufous and chestnut 

 instead of black. 



Robinson and Kloss " state that in the Malay States this falcon is 

 only a winter visitor, so both forms probably occur in Siam during 

 winter. I have examined no authentic specimens of typical leuphotes. 



•» Journ. Nat. Hist. Soc. Siam, vol. 5, p. 91, 1923. 



