242 Notes on Mr. R. B. Sharpe's Catalogue of Accipitrcs, 



Valley, California, and was the only exam])lc known up to 

 the time when Messrs. Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway drew up 

 the description given of it in the third volume of their work, 

 which is very full, and is accompanied by a woodcut of the 

 bird itself, and also by one of the foot and leg in detail. This 

 account contains the following remark, which it may be use- 

 ful to transcribe : — " The nearest ally of this species is the 

 B. ferox of the Palaearctic region, which has exactly the size 

 and proportions of the present bird, and, in certain stages, a 

 very similar plumage." 



Since the article above referred to was written, a second 

 sj)ecimen of this Buzzard has been obtained : this example 

 was procured from Denver, in Colorado; and Mr. Ridgway, 

 who has had the goodness to inform me of its occurrence, 

 adds that it agrees closely with the type specimen. 



Before proceeding to the consideration of the Buzzards of 

 the Old World, I am desirous to recur to an obscure South- 

 American form, to which I have already briefly alluded 

 [antea, p. 69), Buteo unicolor of D'Orbigny, described by that 

 traveller at page 109 of his ' Oiseaux de I'Amerique JNleri- 

 dionale.^ 



The type specimen, which appears to have been the only 

 one obtained, was met with by D'Orbigny near Palca, in Bo- 

 livia, and is still preserved in the Museum of the Jardin des 

 Plantes at Paris, where it has been recently examined by Mr. 

 Salvin, who kindly permits me to furnish my readers with 

 the following notes which he has made respecting it : — 



"Measurements : wing 14"5 inches, tail 8, tarsus 2*5, mid- 

 dle toe s. u. 1*3. 



"The whole plumage is sooty brown; the foreliead on 

 either side has a small white spot ; the tail is barred with 

 fourteen narrow black bars on a brown ground ; these bars 

 were counted on the upper side of the middle reetrices, and 

 the whole fourteen are exposed between the end of the upper 

 coverts and the tip of the tail ; the upper tail-coverts and the 

 uropygium were hardly paler than the rest of the back." 



I may supplement the above by the following extract from 

 D'Orbigny^s original description : — " Toutcs les parties su- 



