140 Letters, Announcements, ^c. 



and the bird occasionally seen flying from tree to tree, or soar- 

 ing for a short distance in the air, and then alighting. A fine 

 Black Eagle, Neopus malaiensis, fell to my gun, with a charge 

 of No. 8 shot in it, as he suddenly swept round a hillside on 

 which I was busily engaged looking for some Black Pheasants, 

 GaUophasis albocristatus. I have previously seen this fine 

 raptor in Sikkim, but never had the good fortune to get within 

 gunshot of one before. 



Two distinct species of Grosbeak formed an interesting addi- 

 tion to my bag. One was the large blue-billed Mycerobas 

 melanoxanthus, and the other, of which I got fine specimens of 

 both sexes, was Hesperiphona icteroides. Neither of them appear 

 well known to science ; I hope, therefore, at a future period to 

 give a more detailed statement regarding them, merely noting 

 en passant that the latter species is apparently far from un- 

 common, and feeds, I presume, on the cones of the pines. The 

 stomach of a male which I examined had it full of the white 

 kernels of some seed. They have a loud, plaintive, trolling call, 

 uttered generally from a high pine tree, the female being appa- 

 rently more wary than the male, and wanting his conspicuous 

 black and yellow plumage. 



Yours, &c., 



R. C. Beavan. 



Simla, September 18th, 1866, 

 Sir, — Dr. Stoliczka, a Polish gentleman, attached to the 

 Geological Survey of India, has lately arrived here with a fine 

 collection of some 300 specimens of birds collected in Spiti, 

 Ladak, and the neighbouring hill states. Perhaps the best 

 thing he has, or at least the greatest novelty to me, is a young 

 Neopus malaiensis, Reinwardt, in a phase of plumage never 

 before, I believe, recorded : — Beneath, entirely dark brown, like 

 the under parts of Milvus govinda, each feather black-shafted ; 

 the top of the head rufous (the feathers also black-shafted) ; 

 a conspicuous shoulder-spot of a pure white ; primaries of wings 

 black ; secondaries and tertiaries dark brown, their coverts 

 being broadly margined with ashy-grey; tail the same. The 

 upper back is dark brown, with here and there a purplish gloss 



