THE BIRDS OF HAITI AND THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC 113 



The specific name of the red-tailed hawk must change from 

 borealis to jamaicensis with the recognition of the Greater Antillean 

 race as a valid form, since Gmelin who proposed both these names 

 on the same page named jamaicensis first with borealis following. 

 Through application of the principle of anteriority the scientific 

 name of the red-tail becomes Buteo jamaicensis. 



The red-tailed hawk, the largest of the common hawks of this 

 area, is easily distinguished when adult by its reddish brown tail. 

 The back is dusky brown, mottled more or less with buffy, the 

 throat blackish, and the rest of the underparts buffy white, with a 

 large blackish patch, more or less interrupted with white, on the 

 center of the lower surface. The young have the tail dusky brown 

 barred indistinctly with paler. 



BUTEO PLATYPTERUS PLATYPTERUS (Vieillot) 



BROAD-WINGED HAWK 



Sparvius platypterus Viellot, Tabl. Encycl. Meth., vol. 3, 1823, p. 1273 

 (Schuylkill River, near Philadelphia, Pa.). 



Apparently very rare. 



During a visit to the Exposicion Nacional at Santiago, Dominican 

 Republic, on May 31, 1927, Wetmore examined a mounted specimen 

 of the broad-winged hawk that was shown among examples of the 

 work produced by one of the higher schools of Santiago. The bird 

 was in immature plumage and had been recently mounted as it was 

 fresh and clean in appearance. Nothing could be learned regarding 

 it except that it was said to have been killed near Santiago. There 

 is no other record of the species for Hispaniola, though occurrence 

 of the bird there is not surprising since the broad-winged hawk is 

 found regularly in Cuba and has been reported from Porto Rico. 



The adult broad-w T ing is dusky brown above, more or less varie- 

 gated with a whitish or brownish wash on the feathers, with the 

 tail broadly banded with whitish. It is buffy white below, barred 

 irregularly with rufescent brown. The immature bird is darker 

 above, with the tail band grayish instead of white, and below is 

 streaked and spotted with dusky brown. The species has a wing 

 measurement in males of 250 to 270 mm. and in females of 280 to 

 290 mm. It is easily distinguished from Rupornis by the more 

 pointed wing tip which in the broad-wing has the seventh and 

 eighth primaries (counting from the inside) about equal and the 

 sixth abruptly shorter ( being 20 mm. or more less in length than the 

 seventh) while in Rupornis there is little difference in length between 

 the sixth, seventh and eighth primaries, the sixth and the eighth 

 being about equal. 



