Mr. R. B. Sharpens Catalogue of Accipitres. 357 



middle toe, s. u. 1'3; culmen from anterior margin of 

 cere 5. 



It will be seen by these measurements of the culmen and 

 middle toe, that, according to the rule given by Mr. Sharpe 

 at p. 47 of his ' Catalogue/ this species comes rather under 

 his genus Accipiter than under that of Astur ; its natural 

 position appears to me to be intermediate between the Astu- 

 rine subgenus Lophospizias and the Accipitrine subgenus 

 Cooperastur, to which it was referred (and, on the whole, I 

 think rightly) by Bonaparte in the Rev. et Mag. de Zool. for 

 1854, p. 538. 



Another and still scarcer South- American form, Falco polio- 

 gaster of Temminck (PI. Col. 264) is included by Mr. Sharpe 

 in his ^ci\Vi% Astur ; but from my recollection of the type spe- 

 cimen at Leyden (the only example that I remember to have 

 seen"^), I have little doubt that it ought to be assigned to a 

 distinct subgenus — though, as some years have elapsed since 

 I examined the Leyden specimen, I have not the requisite 

 data to enable me to characterize in detail its subgeneric pecu- 

 liarities, 



Mr. Sharpe also includes in his genus Astur a long list of 

 species which may be conveniently described as short-toed 

 Sparrow- Hawks. Most of these have been referred by various 

 ornithologists to Mr. Gray's genus Micro nisus ; but as the 

 type of that species is (as has been already mentioned f) a 

 Melierax, it will be better to use in its place Dr. Kaup's term 

 of Scelospiza (more properly spelled Scelospizias) , the type 

 of which {S. franciscce) belongs to the group to which I 

 am now referring. 



The subgenus for which I thus propose to use the name of 

 Scelospizias consists of two natural divisions — the one com- 

 prising those most slenderly formed species of which S. badius 

 is the most familiar example, the other those somewhat thickly 



* [We believe that the specimen at Leyden, obtained by Natterer, is 

 the only one in existence in any museum. The bird from Panama, called 

 Micrastur poliogastur ? by Mr. Lawrence, belongs not to that species, but 

 to M, niirandoiii. — Ed]. 



t Vide (intea, p. 23G. 



