Mr. R. B. Sharpens Catalogue of Accipitres. 469 



enumerate the species of which these groups are, according 

 to my view, severally composed, considering first those that 

 are to a certain extent aberrant from A. nisus, which may be 

 taken as the type of Mr. Sharpe's genus Accipiter, and com- 

 mencing with the powerful American Hawks, for which the 

 late Prince Bonaparte proposed the subgeneric name of Cooper- 

 astur. 



An excellent summary of this group has been given by 

 Messrs. Sclater and Salvin at p. 170 of ' Exotic Ornithology,' 

 from which I extract the following list of the species that are 

 comprised in it : — 



" Section A. Species uniformly coloured beneath. 

 1. A. pileatus. 2. A. bicolor. 



Section B. Species more or less mottled beneath. 



3. A. cooperi. 5. A. guttatus. 



4. A. gundlachi. 6. A. chilensis. 



Section C. Species broadly barred below and with breast rufous. 

 7. A. pectoralis." 



In the summary above referred to, the authors of the ' Ex- 

 otic Ornithology' treat A. mexicanus, Swains., as a synonym 

 of ^. cooperi; and in this view, which appears to me to be 

 entirely correct, Mr. Sharpe concurs; a similar conclusion 

 has also been arrived at by Mr. Ridgway, who has published 

 some remarks on this subject at p. 84 of the last volume of 

 the 'Proceedings' of the Academy of Natural Sciences of 

 Philadelphia, where he has also given some interesting par- 

 ticulars of the climatic variations of colouring which he has 

 observed in specimens of A. cooperi obtained in various parts 

 of the North- American continent. 



In the same paper Mr. Ridgway confirms the view taken 

 by Messrs. Sclater and Salvin in treating A. gundlachi as 

 specifically distinct, a point as to which Mr. Sharpe has ex- 

 pressed some doubt in a footnote to p. 137 of his Catalogue. 



Like Mr. Sharpe, 1 have never had an opportunity of per- 

 sonally examining this Cuban Hawk ; and I am not aware that 

 any specimen of it exists in this country. 



