Mr. R. B. Sharpe's Catalogue of Accipitres. 443 



F. tamjpterus in its oldest and least-spotted phase of plumage. 

 Presuming this to be the case, it is singular that F. biarmicus 

 has only been recorded in East xifrica in quite southern lati- 

 tudes ; indeed I know of no record of its occurrence in those 

 parts more northern than the specimen seen, but not obtained, 

 by Mr, Ay res in the Mashoona country {supra, p. 239). In 

 West Africa this Falcon has, however, been met with further 

 northward, specimens from the Portuguese territory of Ben- 

 guela having been recorded by Du Bocage, in his Orni- 

 thology of Angola, p. 46, and also in his 19th and 21st 

 Lists of the Birds of Portuguese West Africa. 



The late Professor Kaup, at p. 69 of the ' Isis ' for 1847, 

 and subsequently at p. 55 of *" Contributions to Ornithology ' 

 for 1850, separated as a subgeneric group, under the title of 

 Gennaia, the following Falcons: — F. juggur, F. hypoleucus 

 F.feldeggii (with which he united F. tanypterus) , F. biarmicus, 

 and F. lanarius, Pallas, = s«cer, Gmelin. To these I would 

 add F. mexicanus (which probably should include as a 

 synonym F. polyagrus) and F. subniger ; and I would elimi- 

 nate from the group F. feldeggil and F. biarmicus, which, in 

 my opinion, more properly belong to the restricted genus 

 Falco. This, I think, would leave a very natural subgeneric 

 group for which Kaup^s term of Gennaia may be conveniently 

 employed. 



Mr. Sharpe has placed two of the species which appear to 

 me unquestionably to belong to the subgenus Gennaia [G. 

 saker* and G. mexicana) amongst the arctic Falcons of the 

 subgenus Hierofalco ; but I cannot agree with this arrange- 

 ment, which has been already objected to, and I think with 

 good reason, by Mr. Dresser, in the ^ Birds of Europe,' 

 vol. vi. p. 64. 



Mr. Sharpe gives the geographical range of the typical 

 species of the genus Gennaia, G. juggur, as the '^ Indian 

 Peninsula /' but this definition is not quite sufficiently com- 

 prehensive, as this Falcon has been obtained in Afghanistanf, 



* I adopt Mr. Sharpe's spelling of this specific name, 

 t Vide Horsfield and Moore's ' Catalogue of the East-India Com- 

 pany's Museum," p. 21 ; also '■ Stray Feathers,' vol. ix. p. 4-')l. 



