286 Mr. T. Ayres on the Ornithology of Transvaal. 



red-orange. Total length 13;^ inches, bill from gape 1, tarsus 

 2 J, tail 5^, wing 9. 



Female, Rustenburg, January 24, 1878. Bill black, base 

 red; legs red"^. 



One of these Hawks was shot by my brother during the 

 summer ; and the other I shot in the early spring. They are 

 the first of the kind I have met with, and certainly never 

 appear, so far as I know, in the Potchefstroom district. Above 

 Kustenburg they appear to be not uncommon during our 

 summer months ; but as winter approaches they disappear ; 

 I saw but two in the spring, solitary birds, and exceed- 

 ingly shy. 



[I believe the species has never before been noticed in so 

 southern a locality on the eastern side of the African conti- 

 nent ; on the western side a specimen fi'om the vicinity of 

 the Okavango river is recorded in my edition of the late Mr. 

 Andersson^s ' Notes on the Birds of Damara Land,^ p. 26. 



The male bird sent is in full adult plumage ; the female, 

 which was just commencing her moult, has all the grey 

 portions of her older suit of feathers perceptibly tinged 

 with brown, which I take to be an indication of immature 

 plumage. 



I have frequently observed in birds of prey killed when 

 the period of moulting had approached, that the pale-coloured 

 portions of the rectrices have become much more worn than 

 the dark portions ; such is remarkably the case in the present 

 specimen as regards the central pair of rectrices, in which the 

 white transverse bar is greatly worn, and much more so than 

 the adjacent dark portions of the feather. 



In 'The Ibis^ for 1876, p. 484, I referred to the near 

 affinity which exists between this species and the genus Me- 

 lierax, which has been subsequently confirmed by an obser- 

 vation of the late Mr. E. C. Buxtonf, that this bird has a 

 song (which he heard uttered by it on the coast opposite 



* [Mr. Ayres does not give the measurements of this specimen from 

 the flesh ; but I have taken the following from the skin : — wing 9-8 inches, 

 tarsus 2-4.— J. PI. G.] 



t Vide V. Z. S. 1878, p. 791. 



