Letters, Extracts from Correspondence, Notices, ii^-c. 429 



Bubo calif/atus, in which I can detect no horns ; but I find that 

 the feathers of the hind-neck are long and loose, some of those 

 on one side especially so, and I consequently imagine that in the 

 bird described in the ' Ibis ' the native stuffier must have 

 pushed the skin up over the ears, so as to give to the specimen 



the appearance of horns The species may yet prove 



to be Sp-nium indranee. I subjoin a note on the individual last 

 procured. 



" Syrnium caligatum, $, 21st February, 1864. Bill pale yel- 

 lowish white, tinged with blue (the blue tint being evanescent), 

 deepening into indigo near its base ; claws deep brown on rather 

 more than the apical half, passing into dingy white towards their 

 bases. Length 20 in. ; tail 10^ in., of twelve feathers somewhat 

 graduated ; wing 15| in., the fifth quill rather the longest. 



" I received from the interior, at the same date, a specimen, 

 new to the Formosan avifauna, of Buteo poliogemjs, Schlegel. 

 Bill blue-black, pale on the gonys and lower portion of base of 

 upper mandible ; cere and over the eye dull olive-green ; eyelids 

 and commissure-angle gamboge ; legs and toes of a deep rich 

 chrome-yellow ; claws black, more or less patched with pale 

 brown, chiefly about their middle portions j upper portion of the 

 tibia feathered. Total length 16^ in. ; tail 9 in., of twelve even 

 feathers, obtuse at the ends, and somewhat graduated outwardly, 

 so as to give the tail a rounded appearance when expanded ; 

 wing 9^ in., the fourth and fifth quills equal and longest. Tomite 

 of bill with a single deep festoon on each side. 



" Appearance of bird, between Buzzard and Sparrow-Hawk; so 

 that Hodgson's generic name Butastur is very aptly applied to it. 

 Some feathers of the hind head long and subacuminate, forming 

 a crest protruding about half an inch.'' 



We regret to find some errors in the article on the Nesting of 

 the Lanner Falcon in Egypt, in the last Number of the ' Ibis.' 



The Egyptian and North-African Falcon, which is identical with 

 Falco feldeggii, is not Falco sacer, but Falco lanarius, Schlegel. 



Falco tanypterus, Licht., from Abyssinia, as we are informed 



