16 ACCIPITEES. 



joining the chest ; throat ashy-white, slightly mottled with bluish- 

 grey, the remainder of the under surface, under wing- and tail- 

 coverts barred alternately with narrow lines of rufous and white, 

 therufousbars the broader; tail ashy- whitebelow with from twelve 

 to fifteen narrow black bars on the feathers, the centre two 

 having spots on the shaft-line showing remains of the cross-bars ; 

 primaries with twelve to fourteen blackish cross-bars, which in 

 verv old birds are broken and altogether obsolete at the tips of 

 the feathers ; the inner webs of the under surface of all the 

 quills have a tinge more or less of fawu colour. Description 

 from a freshly moulted specimen, bill bluish at the base, tip 

 black, legs and feet dull-yellow, claws black. Towards the 

 moulting season the plumage of the upper surface becomes 

 bleached and is then of a dull-brown. Total length 13"5 inches, 

 wing 9 inches, tail 7 inches, bill from forehead 1 inch, from 

 nostril 06 inch, from gape 09 inch, tarsus 2"8 inch, mid. toe 

 (s.u.) 1"3 inch. 



The female is slightly larger and browner upon the upper sur- 

 face, the collar is not so well-defined, and the chin and cheeks 

 are mottled with brown. Total length 15 inches, wing 10'5 

 inches, tail S inches, bill from forehead 1'05 inch, from nostril 

 06 inch, from gape 1 inch, tarsus 29 inches; mid. toe (s.u.) 

 1"B inch. 



[None of our Australian Accipitres have puzzled ornithologists 

 so much as the present species. Gould, who described and figured 

 it under the name of Astur cruentus states in his Birds of 

 Australia, that it is very common in Western Australia, particu- 

 larly in the York district and at the Murray. Whether he was 

 quoting from Gilbert's notes, or whether the statement was only 

 a surmise on Gould's part it is impossible to say, but the fact 

 remains that this species is undoubtedly the rarest of all our 

 diurnal birds of prey. The late Mr. J. H. Gurney considered 

 A. cruentus to be a synomyn of A. approximans, a belief , also for 

 many years, partly shared by Dr. Ramsay. Mr. George Masters 

 did not meet with it on either of his collecting trips to Western 

 Australia in 18(33 and 1868. Mr. E. J. Cairn and the late Mr. 

 T. H. Boyer-Bower spent over twelve months collecting at Derby, 

 in the north-western part of that colony, and although both 

 obtained several specimens of A. approximans, it was only a short 

 time before the decease of the latter gentleman, that he was 

 enabled to send a box to Dr. Eamsay for examination which 

 contained examples of the true A. cruentus, of Gould. These 

 were at that time the only known specimens obtained since Gould 

 described the type nearly half a century before. Count Salvadori, 

 who, however, has had the advantage of examining a typical 

 specimen of Cuvier's Falco torquatus in the Leyden Museum, 

 and which Temminck, in his description of this species in his 



