Subgenera Cooperastur and Urospizias. 261 



pale rufous^ with faint sagittate marks of darker nifous ; the 

 under tail-coverts are pale rufous. According to a note at- 

 tached to the skin by the collector, the irides were bright 

 yellow, the feet were orange, and the bird was a male. 



The wing-measurement of this specimen is 8'35 inches, the 

 tarsus 2*1, and the middle toe s. u. 1*4. According to Mr. 

 Sharpe's Catalogue of Accipitres, p. 120, the wing of the 

 type specimen in the British Museum measures 10 inches, 

 and the tarsus 2'G5, indicating that the example in the 

 British Museum is a female, and that the still larger 

 Urospizias tneyerianus (Sharpe) is not, as supposed by Count 

 Salvadori'^, the female of U. alblgularis, but a distinct and 

 larger species. 



The Norwich Museum is also indebted to Canon Tristram 

 for the acquisition of an immature female of Urospizias 

 approximans from the island of Lifu, in the Loyalty group, 

 which fully bears out the observation of the Messrs. Layard 

 in 'The Ibis' for 1880, p. 222, as to the "singularly mfous'' 

 coloration of some of the young specimens obtained by them 

 from that locality, of which this individual is one. Like 

 those gentlemen, I at first doubted whether this specimen 

 was really referable to U. approximans ■\, never having seen a 

 young example of that species so rufescent, especially as 

 regards the broad rufous edgings to the feathers of the mantle, 

 the dimensions being also rather less than is usual in females 

 of U. approximans ; but the Norwich Museum having subse- 

 quently obtained an immature South- Australian male of that 

 species in a very similar stage of plumage, and almost as rufous 

 as the Lifu specimen, I have now no doubt that the latter was 

 correctly referred by the Messrs. Layard to U. approximans ; 

 and I think it likely that these unworn rufous margins to the 

 feathers of the mantle may indicate that the specimens on 

 which they are found have but recently left the nest. 



The adult birds of U. approximans, and also of U. tor- 

 quatus, are subject to considerable variation, both as regards 

 the tint and the intensity of the transverse rufous bars on 



* Vide Orn. Pap. e Molucc. vol. i. p. 4o. 

 t Conf. Canon Tristram's remarks supra, p. 135 

 SER. IV. VOL. V. T 



