256 Letters, Extracts, Notices, ^c. 



P. 61. Micropus melanoleucus from Sumatra is a Pycno- 

 notine bird. See Sharpe^ Cat. B. vi. p. 64. Micropus me- 

 lanoleucus of Shufeldt is a Swift, more correctly to be called 

 Cypselus melanoleucus. Our American friends are respon- 

 sible for this error_, which has been caused by their unwar- 

 rantable resuscitation of Micropus instead of Cypselus. 



P. 66. The family Plataleidse cannot be properly main- 

 tained as distinct from the Ibididae. 



XXIV. — Letters, Extracts, Notices, ^c. 



We have received the following letters addressed to the 

 Editor of 'The Ibis:'— 



Northrepps, January, 1889. 



Sir, — I am desirous of offering a few remarks on some of 

 the Raptorial birds referred to in the last number of ' The Ibis.' 



In the Notes by Mr. Sharpe and Mr. Whitehead on birds 

 collected by the latter gentleman in Northern Borneo, it is 

 remarked, on p. 66, under the head of Circus spilonotus, that 

 the series " seems to prove conclusively that the sexes are 

 similar when they are fully adult." 



In confirmation of this opinion, I may mention that Mr. 

 P. W. Styan was so good as to show me a specimen from 

 Foochow (one of a series recorded by him in ' The Ibis/ 1887, 

 p. 231), which he assured me was a female by dissection, but 

 which had assumed the grey plumage ; a memorandum which 

 I made at the time states that this specimen " was entirely 

 in male plumage, except a slight mottling of brown inter- 

 spersed with the grej^ on the back." 



At p. 75 of the same paper Mr. Sharpe refers to a remark- 

 able Palcon in the British Museum from the Lawas River as 

 an example of " the dark richly -coloured Peregrine of the 

 Sunda Islands," with reference to which I wish to observe 

 that the Lawas-River specimen is, so far as my experience 

 goes, quite unique; this very abnormally coloured Falcon 

 was described in detail in 'The Ibis' for 1882, p. 303. 



To ' The Ibis ' for 1888, p. 145, on the authority of Professor 



