Letters, Announcements, i^c. 333 



be distinguished from a small female by its more slender legs, 

 which are '6 of an inch in circumference (!) in the male, and 

 •88 of an inch in the female.' No one will attach any import- 

 ance whatever to a criterion of this kind, especially in the case of 

 dried skins. Of far more importance are the measurements which 

 Hutton gives, if, as I must suppose, they are taken from positively 

 ascertained males and females, because they confirm the view that 

 the latter are always large birds, and, with the table of measure- 

 ments compiled by myself, serve to prove that the discrimination 

 of two species differing in size cannot well be maintained/' 



There is no doubt on my own mind that the marking of the 

 smaller species as " Quail-hawk" was merely a lapsus calami ; 

 because, in all his correspondence with me on this subject. Dr. 

 Haast has distinguished the larger Falcon by that name, and 

 the smaller one as the " Sparrow-hawk." 



With regard to the data furnished in Captain Hutton's Ca- 

 talogue, I would simply remark that there is no evidence whatever 

 of the sex having been, in a single case, determined by dissection. 

 As I have already pointed out in my history of the species, the 

 fact that a male example of my H. novts-zealandicB (carefully sexed 

 by Dr. Haast, and exhibiting the testes fully developed) proves 

 to be actually larger than the female of H. brunnea, is decidedly 

 opposed to the theory of there being only one species. 



Mr. Gurney, after a further examination of the specimens in 

 the British Museum, writes me : — " I am sure you are right 

 about the distinctness of the two New- Zealand Hieracidea." 

 In the last letter which I had the pleasure of receiving from 

 Dr. Haast (dated New Zealand, March 10), the following state- 

 ment occurs : — " Concerning the specific distinctness of the 

 Sparrow-hawk and the Quail-hawk, I may tell you that on my 

 last journey into the interior I got two of the former [i. e. the 

 small species). They were male and female; and I secured 

 them at the nest, where they had young ones. The female was 

 a little bigger and lighter than the male bird. Both birds were 

 full-grown, diud showed at a glance the impossibility of their ever 

 developing into the large and perfectly distinct Quail-hawk." 



I am yours &c., Walter L. Buller. 



7 Westminster Chambers, Victoria Street, London, S.W., 

 June 8, 1872. 



