340 Dr. T. C. Jcrdon^s Supplementary Notes 



47. BUTEO PLUMIPES. 



At present this must remain as a unique specimen of a 

 veiy rare bird. Mr. Beavan states that Mr. Gurney agreed 

 with Mr. Blyth that it was perhaps a melanism of B.japonicus; 

 but Mr. Gurney cannot recall his having stated so, and cer- 

 tainly now considers it quite distinct. It has a small Circus- 

 like bill ; and the toes are remarkably short, much more so than 

 in the smallest B.jojwnicus. A rather small B. japonicus, which 

 I procured in Kashmir, and which is now in Lord Walden's 

 collection, has an unusually small bill, and I was in hopes that 

 it might turn out to be B.plamipes; but on comparison with the 

 unique specimen in the British Museum it was found to have 

 much longer toes. 



Mr. Elwes informs me that Mr. Blanford, when in company 

 with him in the interior of Sikkim, procured what at the time 

 they thought might be B.p)lumipes ; but no notice of this has yet 

 been published. Of course it is very different from B.pygmceics, 

 Blyth, which turns out to be Poliornis poliof/eni/s, Lesson {pyr- 

 rhogenys, Schle^e]) . It was this species, and not B. plu}7iipes, 

 that I stated to be osculant between Circus and Buteo^ — though, 

 as a matter of fact, Hodgson names B. plumipes Circohuteo 

 in his MSS, 



49. Archibuteo strophiatus, Hodgson. The Asiatic 

 Booted Buzzard. 

 'Archibuteo cryptogenys, Ilodgs. 



A. liemiptilopus, Blyth. 



I think that there is very little doubt that Hodgson's A. strO' 

 phiatus is the same as his A. cryptogenys ; and it is certainly the 

 same as Blyth's A. hemiptilopus. Mr. Blyth insisted that Hodg- 

 son had sent Aquila pennat a under the name of ^. strophiatus f, 

 and therefore gave the present bird a distinct name ; but Hodgson 

 was quite familiar with A. pennata, which he has figured under 

 my Catalogue-name milvoides, and his sending that bird as the 

 type of his A. strophiatus must therefore have been accidental. 

 His specimen in the British Museum, sent under that name, 



* Vide Hume's * Scrap-book,' p. 285. 



t Though, I iind in his earliest paper ou the subject, he does not state 

 so, but merely that he strongly suspects it to be the same. 



