Mr, R. B. Sharpens Catalogue 0/ Accipitres. 231 



Mr. Sharpe, in a footnote at p. 452 of his work, adopts 

 Gassings view, and refers to this species under the title of 

 PoUoa'etus solitarius, stating, however, that he is not per- 

 sonally acquainted with it. 



On the other hand, Mr. Ridgway, who has been so good as 

 to write to me respecting this remarkable bird, and whose 

 words I now quote, describes the result of his examina- 

 tion of the type specimen to be, that he considers it " a 

 Buteonine form, differing from the true Buteones only, so 

 far as I can see, in the system of coloration, which reminds 

 one somewhat of Milvago chimachima. Like B. borealis, B. 

 desertorum, &c., four primaries have their inner webs cut ; but 

 they are sinuated rather than emarginated, and more as in 

 Leucopternis ; the fifth is the longest, the first shorter than 

 the ninth.^^ 



The figure given in the plates to Gassings edition of the 

 United-States Exploring Expedition appears to me to favour 

 Mr. Ridgway's view, and to confirm Peale's original allocation 

 of this species in the genus Buteo. 



To return to the Buzzards of the American continent, I 

 now propose to allude to Buteo abbreviatus, a species which 

 seems to me to occupy a somewhat solitary position in the 

 Buteonine family, not grouping very closely with any of its 

 congeners. Both the specimens of this Buzzard, of which 

 Mr. Sharpe gives the measurements, appear by their dimen- 

 sions to be females, those of two examples (one an ascertained 

 male) given in Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway^s ' Land Birds 

 of North America^ (vol. iii. p. 273) being very considerably 

 less. 



The type of Buteo zonocercus in the Norwich Museum, 

 which is now ascertained to be an adult example of B. abbre- 

 viatus, is also, from its small size, no doubt a male bird. I 

 have recently remeasured this specimen, and find the wing a 

 little longer, and the tarsus rather shorter, than originally 

 described in the P. Z. S. for 1858, p. 130; the correct mea- 

 surement of the wing appears to me to be 15 inches, and 

 that of the tarsus 2*7. 



Messrs. Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway {loc. cif.) describe a 



