386 



This is an interesting and important acquisition, and may at 

 last enable us to determine with certainty a disputed point in our 

 ornithology, and to remove whatever confusion still remains. 

 There are three varieties of North American hawks, each of 

 which is probably a distinct species, in regard to which some 

 confusion has prevailed. These are the common Red-tailed 

 Hawk of the Atlantic States, {Buteo horealis,) B. Sivainsoni, and 

 the California Red-tail, described by Nuttall as B. montanus. 

 The last has only recently been admitted to be a good species. 

 In regard to all three there has been some difficulty in determin- 

 ing their specific distinctions, and they have been more or less 

 confounded by writers. Mr. Audubon gives for the B. Swainsoni 

 a figure of the Red-tail, and Mr. Cassin, in his Synopsis of the 

 Birds of Prey accompanying his illustrated work, confounds tlie 

 Western Red-tail with Swainson's Buzzard. Soon after its 

 publication, having an opportunity to examine three genuine 

 specimens of the latter, he is convinced of their distinctness, and 

 that he had till then never seen a genuine B. Swainsoni. In 

 the same paper, however, Mr. Cassin expresses the belief that 

 there is no specific difference between the eastern and western 

 Red-tailed Hawks. This opinion, however, he has since recalled. 

 His attention having been called to differences in their effo-s, in 

 the cries of the bird, and finding also constant differences in their 

 plumage, he has since admitted the Western bird to be a distinct 

 species, to which Mr. Nuttall's name of Buteo inontanus belongs. 

 Mr. Samuels's specimens of the birds and eggs will, without 

 doubt, afford satisfactory evidence of the correctness of these 

 conclusions, and determine this interesting question beyond 

 further doubt. 



Dr. Kneeland presented, in the name of Dr. James C. 

 Parkinson, of Bridgeboro', New Jersey, descriptions of 

 two new Argonauts, A. Conradi^ and A.fragilis, 



A. Conradi. — Oblong ovate, surfiice minutely granulated, 

 the granulations being chiefly in the grooves between the ribs, 

 and on the tubercles : very few on the ribs. Sides convex 

 toward the carinas, plane toward the lip. Ribs rather distant, 

 except on the umbo : broad, elevated, except anteriorly, where 



