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



for this Kite is mentioned in the 'Birds of Europe' by Mr. 

 Dresser, who says that '' to the eastward it occurs about as 

 far as the Lena/' and the specimen from North China_, to 

 which I have already alluded, shows that it has occurred even 

 much further to the east than the limit assigned to it in that 

 direction by Mr. Dresser. 



The Asiatic range of Milvus cegijptius is not alluded to by 

 Mr. Sharpe ; but though it is very limited in comparison 

 with that of M. migrans, it ought not to be overlooked. 



The title of '^ Arabian Kite/' which Latham conferred on 

 this species'^' in 1781, has been justified in recent times by 

 the existence of a colony of these Kites at Wady Gharandel, 

 in the Sinaitic Peninsula, recorded by Mr. Wyattf- 



The occurrence and nidification of the Yellow-billed Kite 

 in Palestine has been noted by Canon Tristram \ ; and ac- 

 cording to Von Heuglin it has also been met with in Asia 

 Minor §. There is therefore no doubt that the summer mi- 

 gration of this species extends to, at least, some countries 

 of Western Asia. 



The geographical ranges of the eastern species of the genus 

 Milvus are especially difficult to define with accuracy, in 

 consequence of the very remarkable and perplexing manner 

 in which these species or races merge into one another. The 

 smallest of the Milvi, the Australian M. affims, contrasts con- 

 spicuously in its dimensions with the great Japanese M. me- 

 lanoiis ; and yet the one species is connected with the other 

 by a gradation of specimens so continuously intermediate, 

 both in size and in coloration, that, though it may be con- 

 venient to adopt the view of Mr. Sharpe, which is also that 

 of Mr. Hume, that the series is divisible under the three 

 specific heads of M. affinis, M. govinda, and M. melanotis, the 

 boundary-lines between these three species seem to me not 

 to be capable of so precise a definition as to be entirely 

 satisfactory. 



* Vide Lath. Gen. Syn. vol. i. p. 61. 



t Vide Ibis, 1870, p. 2. 



X Vide Ibis, 1859, p. 24, and ISGo, p. 256. 



§ Vide Oiii. Nordost-Afrikirs, vol. i. p. 100. 



