50 CATALOGUE OF Till: BIRDS or PREY. 



[The genus Machcerirhamphus, Westerman, to which 

 Stringonyx, Gurney, P. Z. S. 1865, p. 618 (so named from 

 its resemblance in the middle claw to Owls of the genus 

 Strive), has to give way, consists of three species : — 

 M. anderssoni, Gurney, 

 M. revoili, Oustalet, 

 M. alcinus, Westerman. 



Macheerirhamphus anderssoni, the subject of one of my 

 father's most important papers, here reprinted (but without 

 the Plate), was described by him from a female shot in 1865 

 by Svante, a servant of the well-known explorer Charles 

 J. Andersson, subsequently shown to be a young bird ('Ibis/ 

 1879, p. 468). 



Andersson's specimen was obtained in Damara Land, but 

 my father notes * that it has also been obtained at Loango in 

 Angola (Bocage^rfe Falkenstein) and that Mr. II. H. John- 

 ston observed it at Vivi on the river Congo, which is about 

 100 miles from the west coast. Three or four have been 

 procured in Madagascar and it has been found in the Comoro 

 Islands (J. f. O. 1890, p. 110). 



Besides the type of M, anderssoni in Norwich Museum, my 

 father adds that there are one at Cambridge, and three in the 

 National Collection, including what may have been the pair 

 to ours, which, it appears from Andersson's memorandum, 

 was killed at Ondunga Ovampo, 12th May or March, 1866. 

 He w as further informed by Mr. L. Lloyd that Andersson 

 had written to him, under date of February 10th, 1867, of 

 his having obtained a third ; but if this example was pre- 

 served its whereabouts is not known now. 



In addition to Wolf's illustration of my father's paper, 

 where the head (which has the largest gape in proportion 

 to its beak of any bird of prey) is separately figured, there is 

 a good figure of a much darker example in the ' Ois. de 

 Madagascar/ Mr. Wolf's original drawing correctly depicted 

 the tarsi and toes of the bird bluish white, which the colourist 

 of the printed plate unfortunately changed to buff colour. 

 In ' The Birds of Damara Land,' p. 394, there is a drawing 

 * J. H. G. MSS. notes. 



