MISCELLANEA. 
BIRDS. 
NOTES ON THE OCCURRENCE OF Vullur monachus IN CAL- 
cuTta.—On the 21st of November 1909 an attendant at the Calcutta 
slaughter-house captured and brought to the Museum alive, an adult 
male specimen of the Cinereous Vulture (Vultur monachus) the pre- 
pared skin of which I had the pleasure of inspecting the following 
month. 
This capture very greatly extends the hitherto-recorded range 
of this fine vulture which is essentially a bird of the extreme north- 
west of India, straggling along the Himalayas to Bhutan and 
possibly further east in Tibet. As far as I can ascertain, the only 
record of Vultur monachus ever having occurred south or south- 
east of the Brahmaputra is my own record of a pair which I found 
breeding in North Cachar in 1888-89, and from the nest of which 
I twice took eggs (Journ. Bomb. Nat. Hist. Soc., xi, page 391). 
A pair were also seen by me at Dimagiri in Bhutan in Novem- 
ber, 1885, and an egg was procured for me by the Bhuteas from a 
cliff further in the mountains and at a considerably higher eleva- 
tion. 
Throughout the Dooars I have no record of its having been 
shot, though it must occasionally occur there in the cold weather, 
and it is not until one gets well into the north-west that it is often 
met with. 
Dr. Annandale has noted the colours of the soft parts of the 
Calcutta bird as follows: ‘‘The bill is blackish brown ; the cere 
pale mauve; the iris brown ; the naked skin of the neck livid flesh- 
colour ; the legs and feet creamy or pearly white. The wing from 
carpal joint to tip of longest primary is 29°10 inches.’’ 
E. C. StuaRT-BAKER, 
EZ Spl Bas. 
AN ALBINO OwL.—Among the birds recently received at the 
Indian Museum is analbino specimen of the Spotted Owlet (Athene 
brama) presented by Mr. D. Ezra, who obtained it alive from 
Benares. The eyes were of a uniform deep violet, and the soft 
parts showed no signs of pigmentation; the feathers are quite 
white. The bird was an adult male. The following are its 
measurements: length 8°5 inches ; wing 61 ; tail 3°2; tarsus I‘I; 
bill -8. 
N. ANNANDALE. 
