420 Mr. J. H. Gurney's Notes on 



of the primaries is conspicuously " barred throughout with 

 greyish buff"*. 



The localities quoted by Mr. Sharpe for iV. morphnoides 

 are South Australia aud Queensland^ to which West Australia 

 should be added; as the Norwich Museum contains an ex- 

 ample from the Swan Rivcr^ and as others from King George^s 

 Sound are recorded at page 29 of Mr. Ramsay^s ' Catalogue 

 of Australian Accipitres/ where some interesting information 

 will also be found relating to the variations of plumage inci- 

 dent to this species^ which may be compared with Mr. Sharpens 

 additional observations on the same subject in the P. Z. S. 

 1875, p. 338. 



Nisaetus fasciatus, like N.jjennatus, has, subsequently to the 

 issue of Mr. Sharpens volume, been the subject of an article 

 in Mr. Dresser's ' Birds of Europe :' much valuable and de- 

 tailed information respecting the geographical distribution of 

 this Eagle is contained in this article ; but by some oversight 

 the author erroneously cites Damara Land as a locality for 

 this species, and quotes, as applying to it, the late Mr. Anders- 

 son's remarks on its more southern congener, N. spilogaster-\. 



In reality there is, so far as I am aware, no trustworthy 

 record of the occurrence of N. fasciatus in South A.frica ; and 

 with regard to its occurrence at Biballa and Huilla, in the Por- 

 tuguese possessions in South- Western Africa, recorded in the 

 ' Journal fiir Ornitliologie ' for 1876, p. 308, it seems proba- 

 ble, as suggested by Mr. Sharpe at page 38 of his edition of 

 Layard's ' Birds of South Africa/ that an error of identi- 

 fication may have occurred, and a further investigation may 

 show that N. spilogaster has been mistaken for N. fasciatus — 

 a mistake which, as I have already pointed out at p. 138 of 

 ' The Ibis' for 1868, may readily arise from the resemblance 



* In Mr. Dresser's article on N. pemiattis, he speaks of the " under 

 surface of the wings being mottled " in N. morphnoides ; but, judging from 

 the specimens I have examined, I should say that the word " barred " 

 describes the peculiarity more accurately than " mottled." 



t Vide 'Notes on the Birds of Damara Land,' pp. 7 & 8, where the 

 original error on this point, which arose from a mistake of my ovav, will 

 be found corrected ; Mr. Dresser, no doubt, quoted from the first edition 

 of Mr. Layard's 'Birds of South Africa,' p. 11. 



