6G Mr. J. II. (lurney's Notes on 



where a place had been assigned to it in the most recent syste- 

 matic works of Gouldj Schlegel, and G. R. Gray. 



The second genus in Mr. Sharpe's arrangement of the Bu- 

 teoninse bears the title of Heterospizias, under which name 

 Mr. Sharpe has separated, and, I think, legitimately, Falco 

 meridionalis of Latham, a species Avhich has been referred to 

 no less than ten different genera by previous ornithological 

 authors. 



Mr. Sharpe places the genus Tachy trior chis third on his 

 list ; but it will be convenient for my purpose to postpone its 

 consideration till after I have referred to the first species enu- 

 merated by him as belonging to the genus Buteo, the so-called 

 ''Chilian Sea-Eagle''^. 



I quite agree with Mr. Sharpe in placing this fine species 

 in the Buteonine subfamily ; but I think it suflBciently distinct 

 to make it advisible to retain for it the subgeneric name of 

 Geranoaetus proposed by Kaup, and adopted by some subse- 

 quent authorities, amongst the most recent of whom are 

 Messrs. Sclater and Salvin, in their ' Nomenclator Avium 

 Neotropicalium,' p. 119. 



According to D^Orbigny {' Voyage dans TAmerique Meri- 

 dionale,"* Oiscaux, p. 77), this species does not attain its full 

 plumage till it has reached its fourth year ; and its interme- 

 diate stages are described in considerable detail by that careful 

 observer ; but neither he nor Mr. Sharpe mentions a phase 

 of plumage which occurs when the bird has nearly completed 

 its progress towards maturity f, and which I will therefore de- 

 scribe from a specimen in the Norwich Museum, a female, 

 obtained in Ecuador : — Upper surface as in Mr. Sharpens de- 



* Vide ' Garden? and Menagerie of the Zoological Society,' 1831, p. 8o, 

 also 'Revised List of the Vertebrated Animals in the Gardens of the 

 Zoological Society,' 1872, p. 214. 



t This phase does not occur in the case of eveiy individual, and perhaps 

 only in the females — as a young male from Chili, in the Norwich Museum, 

 is evidently changing from the plumage designated by Mr. Sharpe as 

 " young " into that which he defines as " adult," without passing through 

 the intermediate stage to which I have here alluded. In the normal adult 

 female the slaty black on the chest extends about an inch lower than it 

 does in the adult male. 



