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



at p. 92, of " Mihus melanotis " being common about Yarkaud 

 at the end of May, and at p. 126 gives the measurements of 

 four Eastern -Turkestan specimens, three males and a female, 

 with reference to which Mr. Hume adds the following edito- 

 rial note : — ''These specimens, though clearly very closely 

 allied to M. major, appear to me all markedly smaller than 

 this latter.^^ Mr. Scully's wing- measurements of his three 

 Turkestan males are, respectively, 18*8 inches, 18'9, and 199, 

 and that of the female (an immature bird) 18'75 ; in the case 

 of the two specimens from Yarkand which I have recently 

 examined at the British Museum, the sex is not recorded, 

 but the wing-measurements slightly exceed those quoted by 

 Mr. Scully, being in the one 20"2 inches, and in the other 

 20*5. With reference to Mr. Hume's remark which I have 

 just quoted, I may observe that though M. melanotis seems 

 to be somewhat more distinct from M.gov'mda than the latter 

 is from M. affinis, yet the larger specimens of M. go- 

 vinda approach so closely to the smaller examples of M. me- 

 lanotis that it is not always easy to distinguish them with 

 certainty, and that, if I mistake not, specimens of this 

 doubtful character chiefly occur in those countries in which 

 the northern range of M. govinda and the southern limit of 

 M. melanotis meet or overlap. 



There is reason to believe that exceptional migrations of 

 M. melanotis may occasionally extend much further to the 

 westward than either Mongolia or Turkestan, as in the ' Revue 

 et Magasin de Zoologie ' for 1869, MM. Alleon and Vian 

 describe in detail a young male Kite, with a wing-measure- 

 ment of very nearly 19 inches*, and agreeing in coloration 

 with the immature dress of M. melanotis when beginning 

 to partially lose its nestling-plumage, which was killed near 

 Constantinople on 6th October 1867. This Kite formed one 

 of a company of six individuals, apparently of the same spe- 

 cies, which appeared in that neighbourhood a month after the 

 Black Kites {M. migrans) had departed on their autumnal 

 southward migration, and of which the survivors remained 



* 0"''48, French measure. 



