468 Mr. J. H. Gurney's Notes on 



cularSj derived from Professor Barboza du Bocage and from 

 Count Salvador!, in the second edition of Mr. Layard's ' Birds 

 of South Africa/ p. 27. 



With regard to Pterolestes augur, I have to remark that 

 in the stage described by Mr. Sharpe under the head of 

 ''adult male/^ but which I have no reason to suppose is 

 limited to the male sex, the throat is sometimes pure white. 

 This circumstance is not noted in Mr. Sharpe's description ; 

 but such a specimen from Abyssinia is represented in RUp- 

 pell's 'Neue Wirbelthiere/ pi. 16. fig. 1, and a similar ex- 

 ample from Benguela is in the Lisbon Museum. The Nor- 

 wich Museum possesses an Abyssinian specimen, also in this 

 stage, in which the throat is white, with the exception of 

 three narrow blackish streaks^ of which one is mesial and two 

 lateral. 



The remarkable phase of plumage in this Buzzard, in which 

 all the underparts are black, is described by Mr. Sharpe 

 under the heads of '' old male ^^ and " old female ;" but in 

 Mr. Blanford's ' Observations in Abyssinia/ that traveller 

 remarks, at p. 297, '' I am rather of opinion, with Riippell, 

 that the dark-coloured birds are young, and not a melanoid 

 variety. I shot two black specimens, one evidently imma- 

 ture, the other apparently a bird of the year.^^ 



Judging from these remarks of Mr. Blanford's, and from 

 such specimens as I have been able to examine, I should 

 suppose the dark plumage to be an occasional melanistic 

 phase incident both to young and to adult specimens ; cer- 

 tainly many immature birds do not exhibit it. The youngest 

 specimen in the Norwich Museum agrees generally with the 

 description given by Mr. Sharpe of the " young '' plumage ; 

 but the upper tail-coverts are dark brown, and are not tipped 

 with rufous; some of the tibial feathers show conspicuous 

 though irregular longitudinal streaks of dark brown ; and the 

 abdomen is similarly streaked throughout, but more profusely 

 than the tibiae. 



A slightly older specimen, in the same collection, agrees 

 more closely with Mr. Sharpe's description, but also shows 

 the brown markings on the thighs, though not on the abdo- 



