Notes on Mr, R. B. Sharpe's Cutulogue of Accipitres. 467 



XLV. — Notes on a ' Catalogue of the Accipitres in the 

 British Museum/ by R. Bowdler Sliarpe (1874). By J. H. 



GURNEY. 



[Continued from p. 376.] 



The continent of Africa is the home of three Buteonine 

 species [Buteo auguralis, Buteo augur, and Buteojakal) which 

 are included by Mr. Sharpe in the genus Buteo, but which 

 appear to me to form a natural subgeneric group^ to which 

 the name of Pterolestes, proposed by the late Professor Sun- 

 devall"^, may be conveniently applied. 



The first two of these species are intertropical in their 

 habitatj being natives of Abyssinia and of some of the adja- 

 cent countries, and having also been obtained in West Africa 

 within the Portuguese territory of Benguela. 



So far as I am aware, nothing is known as to the range of 

 these two species in the countries which intervene between these 

 far-distant localities, neither is it known whether either spe- 

 cies occurs elsewhere in West Africa ; but it may be desirable 

 to record the circumstance of the Zoological Society of London 

 having possessed, some years years since, two living examples 

 of Pterolestes auguralis which were known to have been ob- 

 tained in West Africa, though from what portion of the West- 

 African coast was, I believe, never ascertained. Neither of 

 these interesting birds lived long in confinement ; and, unfor- 

 tunately, neither of them was preserved ; but the sternum of 

 one, a male, was added to the collection in the Norwich Mu- 

 seum, which also possesses an example of this Buzzard said 

 to have been obtained in Nubia. As this species is very rare 

 in collections, and as its dimensions are not given in Mr. 

 Sharpe's work, I may here mention the principal measure- 

 ments of the specimen at Norwich ; these are — wing from 

 carpal joint 13*9 inches, tarsus 2"8, middle toe s. u. 1"5. 



Mr. Sharpe's description of Pterolestes auguralis in his 

 Catalogue is limited to a somewhat brief note supplied by 

 Dr. Finsch ; but he has subsequently published further parti- 



* Vide Addenda to Mr. Sharpe's Catalogue, p. 458 ; also Sundevall ii 

 CEfv. k. Vft. Akad. Forh. 1874, No. 2, p. 27. 



SER. III. VOL. VI. 'Z K 



