Museums of the United States. 321 



(media) being utterly insufficient for the recoguition of the 

 species, as SchlcgeFs assigumeut of them proves (Mus. d. 

 P.-B. Rain, p. 37). 



I also saw in the gallery of the Philadelphia Academy an 

 unnamed and unlabellcd specimen oi Accijjiter pectoi'alis , Bp. 

 {Astur pectoralis, Sharpe_, Cat. Birds, B. M. i. p. 121, 1874). 

 Of this scarce bird, the only specimens known to exist, be- 

 sides the one now referred to, are one in the AntAverp Mu- 

 seum (Bonaparte's type) and two in the Derby Museum at 

 Liverpool [Cf. Sclater, Ibis, 1861, p. 314). Besides these, 

 Natterer obtained three specimens at Ypanema and Borba, in 

 Brazil (Pelz. Orn. Bras. p. 6), one of which passed in 1862 to 

 the Leyden Museum (Schl. Mus. des P.-B. Astures, p. 18). 

 Seven specimens in all. 



There is a specimen in the same museum of Accipiter col- 

 laris, Scl., from Bogota, a bird still rarer than the last named. 

 Only three specimens appear to exist in collections — the type 

 in the British Museum, one in the Norwich Museum, and the 

 one now mentioned as being in Philadelphia. 



Museum of the Boston Society of Natural History. 



Through Dr. T. M. Brewer's kindness I was enabled to ex- 

 amine the fine series of birds in this museum, celebrated as 

 containing the collection formed by the late Baron de La 

 Presnaye, and including most of the types of the many species 

 described by that author. 



Previous to the sale of the Lafresnaye collection a catalogue 

 of the species it contained was prepared by the late M. J. 

 Verreaux. This work was somewhat hurriedly executed ; and 

 the names were taken, in most instances, from the specimens 

 without being checked by reference to Lafresnaye's papers. 

 A very considerable number of the names mentioned in this 

 catalogue are only MS. titles, descriptions of which have never 

 been published ; but they have been placed on the specimens in 

 the galleries, which have been named from Verreaux's cata- 

 logue. It would be of great value to ornithological science 

 if some competent ornithologist would undertake the verifi- 

 cation of the names of this collection with the published 



SEH. 111. VOL. IV. 2 A 



