458 Mr. J. H. Gumey's Notes on 



portunity of examining these specimens, hut I am indebted 

 to the kindness of Mr. Seehohm for a note of the measure- 

 ment of the wing in each of them : the first only measures 14*5 

 inches from the carpal joint, and is therefore, no doubt, a 

 genuine P. humilis ; but whether it is really an Indian speci- 

 men, I should think is doubtful ; and as it was presented by the 

 late Dr. J. E. Gray more than thirty years ago, having been 

 included in the Museum Catalogue published in 1844, it is 

 probably impossible now to ascertain any further particulars 

 as to the locality whence it was obtained. The Assam speci- 

 men, Mr. Scebohm informs me, has a corresponding measure 

 ment of 16'6 inches in the wing, which, if the sex of the bird 

 be rightly determined, affords a very strong presumption that 

 it should be referred to P.plumbeus rather than to P. humilis. 



Mr. Sharpe, subsequently to the publication of his volume, 

 recorded, in ' The Ibis ' for 1876, p. 32, a specimen of P. hu- 

 milis from Borneo ; and another Bornean example was pre- 

 sented several years since to the Norwich Museum, where it 

 is still preserved. 



The genus Gypohierax, containing but a single species, a 

 native of the sea-coast and large rivers in some parts of 

 tropical Africa, is arranged by Mr. Sharpe next in order to 

 Haliaetus, and may, I think, be properly considered as be- 

 longing to the group of Sea-Eagles, although it has by some 

 ornithologists been treated as an aberrant Vulture"^, notwith- 

 standing the vulturine appearance of the bare skin around 

 its eyes and the naked line on either side of the throat, 

 an appearance somewhat strengthened by the remarkable 

 similarity in the colouring of its plumage, both in the imma- 

 ture and in the adult stage, to the Egyptian Vulture [Neo- 

 phron percnopterus) . 



The upper mandible and cere in Gijpohierax greatly resem- 

 ble in their outline and proportions those of Gypaetus, a genus 

 in which vulturine affinities decidedly exist. 



It should also be mentioned that in Gypohierax the front of 



* I myself included Gypohierax aiiiniigst the Vultures in a Catalogue 

 of a portion of the birds of prey in the Norwich Musouni, wliicli was pub- 

 lished iu 18G4. 



