u.i Dr. Jcrdon's 'Birds of India.' 247 



Austr. i. pi. 4), he remarks, is founded {leucosternus at least) on 

 the absence of the black median stripes on the feathers of the 

 white portion of the plumage, a character " purely accidental," 

 as also in H. vocifer. This view is irrecoucikable with the fact 

 that these marks are invariably strongly developed in the Indian 

 race, and are never seen in the Australian race ; while in the 

 Javan race (extending to Siam) they are present but only 

 slightly developed, the white feathers being merely black-shafted. 

 Specimens from Bouru, Gilolo, and Aru are of the true Austra- 

 lian race, without even the shafts of the white feathers black and 

 contrasting. Three Indian specimens and a Javan one were 

 lately to be seen together in the Gardens of the Zoological 

 Society, the difference between them being very conspicuous. 

 Of the immense number which I have examined or beheld close 

 in India, I certainly never saw even one resembling or approxi- 

 mating to the Javanese bird. Upon one occasion I remember 

 witnessing an extraordinary assemblage of " Brahmini Kites," 

 collected to watch the dragging of the moat which surrounds 

 the old fort at Budge-budge (on the bank of the Hugh below 

 Calcutta). There were many hundreds of them, perched so 

 close together on the surrounding trees that it appeared as if 

 the branches would give way with the weight of them. 



The intermediate Javan race {H. intermedius, ' Ibis,' 1865, 

 p. 28), is possibly the result of intermixture; and it may be that 

 there is a greater or less development of the black streaks in the 

 Malayan province according to the proportions of that intermix- 

 ture, constituting a gradation or transition from the Indian 

 race to the Australian, as in some other instances where conter. 

 minous races blend ; and this would lead observers in that par- 

 ticular zoological province to sui)pose the absence or amount 

 of development of the streaks to be " purely accidental." 

 The near affinity of the fine large African Haliastur vocifer to 

 the " Brahmini Kite," noticed by Professor Schlegel, struck me 

 immediately on beholding the pair of the former now living in 

 the Zoological Gardens ; but the voice is very different — that of 

 H. Indus being a peculiar sort of bleat, quite unlike the shrill 

 cries of most Falconidoi and the barking notes of others. H. 

 sphenurus, Gould, bears a similar affinity to Blagrtis leucogaster. 



