Mr. R. B. Sharpe's Catalogue of Accipitres. 239 



B. calurus ; but a typical adult B. borealis is figured iu Mr. 

 Gosse's ' Birds of Jamaica ' from a specimen which that 

 gentleman has kiudly informed me " was shot in Jamaica.'' 



The Norwich Museum contains two adult specimens^ one 

 from Mexico^ the other from Guatemala^ which so closely 

 resemble Mr. Dresser's adult male from Pennsylvania that I 

 cannot do otherwise than refer them to B. borealis ; and the 

 same collection contains a still more typical example of the 

 same race, which is said to have been obtained in Chili, as 

 well as an adult male from Florida, which lived for some 

 years in my possession, and which exhibits markings and 

 coloration of such a thoroughly intermediate character that I 

 feel doubtful Avhether to consider it an example of B. borealis 

 or of B. calurus. 



I may add that the same collection contains unmistakable 

 specimens of B. calurus from Mexico, both normal and 

 melanistic, and one of the latter from Central America, 

 which I believe was obtained as far south as Panama. 



Mr. Sharpe, in the addenda to his volume, briefly refers at 

 p. 458 to the descriptions given in Messrs. Baird, Brewer, 

 and Ridgway's work (vol. iii. pp. 258, 28i & 285) of three 

 other races of Buzzard more or less nearly allied to B. borealis, 

 and severally designated as : — " Buteo krideri, Hoopes," in- 

 habiting " the plains from Minnesota to Texas ; " " Buteo 

 borealis, var. leucasanus, Ilidgway," from the '' peninsula of 

 Lower California ; " and '' Buteo borealis^ var. costaricensis, 

 Ridgway,'" found in " Central America and South-western 

 Mexico, Costa Rica, Veragua, and Tres Marias Islands.'" 



Of these three forms I have only seen the last, which 

 seems to me to be a well-defined race, meriting certainly sub- 

 specific, and possibly full specific distinction. An adult B. 

 costaricensis in the Norwich Museum from Panama agrees 

 with the description of the adult plumage given by Messrs. 

 Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway, with the following exceptions, 

 which may probably be due to individual variation. The 

 feathers of the nape are edged with rufous, and the penulti- 

 mate scapulars arc similarly, but more broadly, edged ; the 

 lowest scapulars are broadly tipped with fuliginous brown, 



