52 CATALOGUE OF THE BIRDS OF PREY. 



The allied Macharirhampkus alcinus inhabits the Aus- 

 tralian and Indian Regions and does not come within 2500 

 miles of M. anderssoni. It is not such a rare bird in col- 

 lections as that species, but 1 ke it has a partiality for Bats 

 (Gurney, ' Zoologist,' 1885, p. 114), is crepuscular, and takes 

 its prey on the wing like a Swallow (Pryer, I.e. p. 48). My 

 father, who went to Leyden in 1869 to examine the type, 

 remarks that " the peculiar carinated ridge on the upper 

 mandible is more sharply denned by a channel on either 

 side in M. alcinus than in M. anderssoni, and the transverse 

 bars on the wings and tail appear to be always present in 

 M. anderssoni, but absent in M. alcinus" (I. c. p. 467). 

 There does not seem to be much difference in size between 

 the two, but M. alcinus has generally by far the longest crest. 

 In 1889 Mr. W. E. Clarke sent my father a photograph 

 of the head of a M acharirhamphus alcinus, received at the 

 Edinburgh Museum from Selangor, in the Straits of Malacca, 

 remarkable for having a large white spot both above and 

 below the eye. Mr. Clarke permits me to quote from my 

 father's correspondence about this photograph : — 



" On examining the two specimens of Machcerhamphus at 

 Norwich, I find tliat the one from New Guinea [obtained 

 by Mr. Goldiej differs from yours in having a little white 

 on the nape, no crest, and no white above or below the eye. 

 Our Bornean bird [obtained by Mr. Everett] resembles your 

 photograph, except that the white above and below the eye 



merely exists as a very narrow and ill-defined streak 



Westerman's figure (Bijdr. tot de Dierkunde, 1848) of 

 the type of M. alcinus at Leyden sIioavs a crest, but no 

 white either above or below the eye. A Tenasserim male 

 very fully described by Mr. Hume in ' Stray Feathers/ 

 vol. iii. p. 269, had a snow-white band over and below the 

 eye. Mr. Hume considers this to be an adult specimen/' 



M. revoili, the remaining species, is only known by the 

 type obtained in Somali-land by M. Georges Revoil. It 

 was described in 1886 by M. Oustalet as resembling 

 M. anderssoni in the wings and tail, but with an occipital 

 crest and a white patch on the neck, like M. alcinus. My 



