Mr. R. B. Sharpens Catalogue 0/ Accipitres. 371 



The late Dr. Jerdon, writing at page 340 of ' The Ibis ' 

 for 1871 respecting Hodgson's A. strophiatus, remarks that 



" it is certainly the same as Blyth's A. hamiptilopus 



His specimen iu the British Museum .... perfectly resembles 

 the type of Blyth's hemiptilopus." 



I have no doubt that this view is correct, although it would 

 appear from Mr. Blyth's description of the type of A. henii- 

 ptilopus that it wants the " broad irregular band of white across 

 the breast" (to quote the words of Mr. Sharpe) which is 

 conspicuous in the type of A. strophiatus. 



This, however, seems to be but a variable character, as a 

 male from Shanghai in the Norwich Museum has much more 

 white on the underparts than the type specimen, agreeing in 

 this respect with a presumed female from Kooloo, described 

 by Mr. Hume in ' Stray Feathers' for 1873, p. 315. 



Mr. Hume also mentions that in his specimen " the first 

 three quills have the v.liole of both webs above the emargi- 

 nation pure Avhite;" but this is probably an individual pecu- 

 liarity, as in the Shanghai specimen at Norwich the outer 

 webs above the emargination of these quills are dark grey, 

 and in the British-Museum specimen the primaries are de- 

 scribed by Mr. Sharpe as " having a slight greyish shade ex- 

 ternally;" Mr. Blyth also describes the type of ^. hemipti- 

 lopus as having the " primaries dusky, paler above the emar- 

 gination of the outer web." 



Unfortunately Mr. Hodgson's specific name of "strophi- 

 atus " is unaccompanied by any description, either in Dr. 

 Gray's 'Zoological Miscellany" (1844, p. 81) or in his 

 Nepal Catalogue (1846, p. 39) ; and I therefore apprehend 

 that, unless such a description was published elsewhere prior 

 to the publication of Mr. Blyth's specific name of hemipti- 

 lopus (which, so far as I can ascertain, is not the case), it 

 will be right to drop the specific name of " strophiatus " and 

 to adopt that of " hemiptilopus," assuming that the iden- 

 tity of these two birds is (as I think it is) sufficiently esta- 

 blished. 



There is, however, another question which arises with re- 

 ference to the synonymy of this Buzzard, viz. : — Is Archi- 



