Letters, Announcements, i^c. 89 



Among the mounted skins in the British Museum may be 

 seen, side by side, examples of" the young of Huhua nipalensis 

 and H. orientalis, which aie very strongly distinguished from 

 each other; and I have no hesitation in pronouncing, contrary 

 to the opinion of Dr. Jerdon (Ibis, 1870, p. 346), that the Te- 

 nasserim specimen which was designated Ptiluskelos amherstii 

 by Col. Tickell is the young of H. nipalensis, and not of H. ori- 

 entalis. I have the most distinct remembrance of it, and assign 

 it thus without any hesitation, — an identification which consider- 

 ably extends the ascertained range of the much larger Himalayan 

 species. 



Among the specimens of economic zoology which are now 

 exhibited in the India- House Museum, I lately noticed a heap 

 of skins labelled as " Indian Game-birds." Among them 1 re- 

 marked two species of Sand-Grouse which have not been ad- 

 mitted hitherto into the Indian avifauna, viz. a tine pair of 

 Pterocles guttatus (sive senegallus) which are marked as having 

 been procured by Griffith, at Koree, in Sindh, and one specimen 

 of P. coronatus, which was also procured by Griffith ; but the 

 locality is not mentioned. Both species have been figured in 

 Gould's ' Birds of Asia.' 



The late distinguished botanist, Samuel Griffith, as is well 

 known, made zoological collections in Sindh and Aflfghanistan, 

 and afterwards in the Khasia hills ; and those collections having 

 got mixed up, not a few of the Khasia species are erroneously 

 set down as having been obtained in Affghanistan in the Cata- 

 logues of the specimens of Mammalia and Birds contained in 

 the London East-India Museum, prepared by Messrs. Horsfield 

 and Moore. A list of such species may not be unacceptable 

 even now, inclusive of a few marked with a note of doubt, but 

 which, as I suspect, were obtained in the more eastern locality 

 by Griffith. Of mammalia, Urva cancrivora, Mustela horsfieldi 

 Lutra indigitata ?, and Sorex griffithii. Of birds : — 



Circus melanoleucus. Psarisomus dalliousise. 



Ketiipa ceylonensis ?* Halcyon leucocephalus. 



Nyctiornis athertoni. Pericrocotus peregrinus. 



* Since obtained in tlie valley of tlie Jordan by Dr. Tristram. 



SER. III. VOL. II. H 



