272 Mr. J. H. Gurney's Notes on 



3 



The White-naped Falconet {M. eutolmus of Jerdon, ex 

 Hodgson) is thought by Mr. Sharpe to be probably the 

 original of Edwards's " Little Black and Orange-coloured 

 Hawk " *, and on that account appears in his catalogue under 

 the title of " Microhierax ccerulescens ; '' but I agree with 

 the opinion expressed by Mr. Hume in ' Stray Feathers/ 

 vol. V. p. 126, that the absence of the white nuchal collar in 

 Edwards's figure and the statement in his text that the bird 

 from which he drew it had the '' upper side of the neck . . . 

 black, shining with a blue and purplish gloss/' is fatal to the 

 identification proposed by Mr. Sharpe. The suggestion of 

 Mr. Hume that Edwards's plate represents a phase of 

 plumage of M. melanoleucus which, from the rarity of that 

 species, is as yet unknown to modern naturalists, seems to 

 me to be a more feasible one ; but in any case I think it 

 would be best to allow the specific name of cm-ulescens to 

 remain in abeyance, and to use for the White-naped Falconet 

 that of eutolmus, under which it was first indicated by 

 Hodgson and subsequently described by Jerdon. 



Specimens of M. eutolmus from countries lying to the east 

 of the Bay of Bengal have the white frontal band and nuchal 

 collar broader than is the case in specimens from Northern 

 India ; Mr. Hume also observes that in the former " the 

 white spot, which forms the representative of the fifth bar on 

 the inner web of the outer tail-feathers, approaches much 

 nearer to the point of the feather " than in the latter ; and 

 he gives measurements, taken from several dissected speci- 

 mens, from which it appears that the distance of this spot 

 from the tip of the feather varies in Himalayan males from 

 0-68 to 1*1 inch, in Himalayan females from 0-55 to 0-87, in 

 Pegu and Tenasserim males from 0-35 to 0*43, and in Pegu 

 and Tenasserim females from 0'37 to 0"50. 



The Norwich Museum possesses two adult, or nearly adult, 

 specimens from Nepal which show a curious variation from 

 the Himalayan examples cited by Mr. Hume : in one of 

 them the lowest spot on the outer rectrice to the left is '80 

 inch from the tip of the feather, while on the external rcc- 

 * Vide Edwards's Nat. Hist, of Birds, vol. iii. p. 108. 



