Mr. R. B. Sharpe's Catalogue of Accipitres. 241 



surface of the head, but without any intermixture of white ; 

 the lower scapulars have, however, concealed broad transverse 

 bars of greyish- brown ; similar concealed bars are on the 

 inner webs of the quill-feathers of the wing, the remaining 

 parts of these quills being blackish-brown, with very narrow 

 paler tips ; these transverse bars are paler and more con- 

 spicuous on the under than on the upper surface of the 

 primaries ; the upper tail-coverts (except the central feathers) 

 are transversely barred with faint markings of a paler brown 

 than the remainder of that portion of the plumage ; the upper 

 surface of the tail is dark grey, crossed by seven bars of 

 greyish black, of which the lowest is subterminal, with a very 

 narrow pale edging to the rectrices below it. The under 

 surface is similar, but paler, and. especially so as regards 

 the grey interspaces between the dark bars. The upper 

 portion of the breast is like the back, but with very slight 

 rufous edgings to some of the feathers ; the lower part of 

 the breast resembles the upper, but with broader rufous 

 edgings to the feathers ; and this is also the case with the 

 abdomen, flanks, and thighs, the rufous edgings being 

 broadest and most conspicuous on the tibial feathers; the 

 under tail-coverts are ochraceous white, transversely but not 

 closely barred with rufous-brown, the lowest of these bars 

 having somewhat the appearance of a line of sagittate spots 

 rather than of an unbroken bar ; the bastard wing is dark 

 grey, the wing-lining ochraceous white, with dark rufous- 

 brown shaft-marks on each feather, many of which are in the 

 form of sagittate spots. 



I may add that melanistic examples of B. calurus have 

 been occasionally mistaken for specimens of B. harlani, from 

 which, I believe, they may always be distinguished by their 

 rufous tails, as that portion of the plumage seems, in the case 

 of B. calurus, to be exempt from a tendency to melanistic 

 coloration. 



There remains but one other North-American species of 

 the genus Buteo to be noticed, B. cooperi, which Mr. Sharpe 

 merely refers to in a footnote at page 172 of his work. The 

 type specimen of this Buzzard was shot in 1855 in Santa-Clara 



