36 Mr. J. H. Gurney on the Kestrel of Madagascar. 



rump is bluish grey, with a darker sagittate mark on each 

 feather. The upper side of the tail is of a blackish-brown tint, 

 with seven lighter transverse bars ; these are grey towards the 

 upper part of the tail, but tinged with rufous towards the lower 

 part. The cheeks and throat are white, with the exception of 

 an indistinctly defined dark moustache extending downwards and 

 backwards from the angle of the mouth. All the under parts 

 are also white, with the exception of a slight rufous tinge on 

 the breast, and of dark lanceolate shaft-marks on the feathers 

 of that part and of the inside of the wing near the carpal joint. 

 The feathers on the inside of the wing, covering the roots of 

 the primaries, show these marks in a more ovate form, which 

 also appears on the feathers of the abdomen. 



Specimen B difi^ers from A in the rufous colour of the back 

 being paler and duller, apparently from the action upon the 

 feathers of the sun and weather, also in the sagittate marks on 

 the rump being more sparsely distributed, in all the light trans- 

 verse bars of the tail being grey, in the cheeks being of the 

 same colour as the upper part of the head, in the ground-colour 

 of the breast, abdomen, flanks, and outer sides of the thighs 

 being of a dark rufous, and in the darker ovate spots being 

 spread over the thighs and under tail-coverts. 



The accompanying Plate, by Mr. Wolf, in which the upper 

 figure represents specimen B, and the two lower figures speci- 

 men A in two attitudes, all reduced to one-third of their natural 

 dimensions, will probably give a clearer idea than any more 

 detailed description of the Madagascar Kestrel. They may be 

 compared with the figure of T. gracilis in DesMurs^s ' Icono- 

 graphie Ornithologique,' pi. 25, and with that of T. punctatus 

 in Temminck's 'Planches Coloriees,' pi. 45. 



Should the readers of ' The Ibis ' agree with me in consider- 

 ing the Kestrel of Madagascar a distinct species, I am sure they 

 will also agree in the propriety of distinguishing it by the name 

 of the naturalist by whom the specimens now described were 

 collected, and of adopting for it the specific designation of T. 

 newtoni. 



In conclusion, I beg leave to add a list of the species of 

 Kestrels which I have had the opportunity of personally ex- 



