230 Mr. J. H. Gurney's Notes on 



are intermediate in appearance between those of the Golden 

 Plover and Lapwing. The very dark variety is one of the 

 set of four found on dark peaty ground, above alluded to ; and 

 the light-coloured variety is one of the set found at the base 

 of the ridge of hummocks, where a quantity of dead and 

 bleached Sphagnum covered the edges of the flat peat-bog. 

 The former set of eggs was the only one found actually laid 

 on peaty dark soil, and the latter the only set found at the 

 base of the ridge amongst the bleached Sphagnum ; and they 

 present the extremes in darkness and lightness of ground- 

 colour. In a series of sixteen eggs, measured by Harvie 

 Brown, they are found to vary in size from 2^^j- by 1^^ of 

 an inch to 1^ by 1^^ of an inch, agreeing with measure- 

 ments of the eggs brought by Herr A. von Middendorff from 

 Siberia (Dresser, ' Birds of Europe,^ temporary vol. i.) . 

 [To be coutinued.] 



XXI. — Notes on a ' Catalogue of the Accipitres in the British 



Museum,' by R. Bowdler Sharpe (1874) . By J. H. Gurney. 



[Continued from p. 76.] 



Having concluded my last paper by a reference to the 

 Buzzard of the Galapagos Islands, it may be convenient that 

 I should next advert to another insular species, a native of a 

 still more isolated habitat in the Pacific Ocean — Buteo soli- 

 tarius of Peale. 



The type specimen, which is preserved in the Academy of 

 Natural Sciences at Philadelphia, and which, I believe, is still 

 unique, was obtained near Karakaloa Bay in the island of 

 Hawaii, the largest of the Sandwich group, and was described 

 by Peale under the above name in the first edition of 

 * The Zoology of the United-States Exploring Expedition/ 

 published in 1848 ; but in the later edition of that work, 

 published in 1858, and edited by Cassin, this species was 

 removed by that ornithologist to the genus Pandion, with the 

 following remark : — " This bird is strictly a member of a 

 subgenus of the generic group Pandion, designated Polioaotiis 

 by Dr. Kaup '^ {vide op. cit. p. 98). 



