Birds of the Philippine Islands. lOo 



Under the synonymy of Dr. Sharpe's Accipiter virgatus, 

 we find A. gularis (Temm. & SchL), A. nisoides, Blyth, and 

 A. stevensoni, Gurney, and though these names_, no doubt 

 synonymous inter se, belong to a species which is certainly 

 very distinct from the typical A. virgatus, Temm., it must 

 be borne in mind that when vol. i. of the ' Catalogue of Birds ' 

 was written the material available was poor enough, very 

 different from the grand series of skins to be seen at the 

 present time. 



A. gularis really belongs to a perfectly distinct group from 

 A. virgatus, Temm., and its allied forms, and is much more 

 closely allied to A. nisus, having the barring on the underparts 

 of the female continued up to the throat, while in the females 

 of the A. virgatus group the chest is, on the whole, longi- 

 tudinally marked and blotched, or nearly uniform in colour, 

 in contrast to the barred breast and underparts. Again, in 

 the female of A. gularis the ashy black line down the middle 

 of the white throat, formed by the marking on the middle 

 line of feathers, is very narrow and confined to the shafts, 

 while in A. virgatus the median band is much wider and more 

 strongly marked. Lastly we may note the difi'erence in the 

 shape of the wing, which, though mentioned by Schlegel 

 (Mus. Pays-Bas, ii., Astures, pp. 32-33, 1862), has been 

 overlooked by subsequent writers. In A. gularis the fourth 

 primary quill, forming the angle of the wing, is considerably 

 longer than the fifth, while in A. virgatus and its allied forms 

 the fourth quill is only slightly longer than the fifth. This 

 difference appears to be constant in birds with fully-developed 

 quills. 



A. gularis may thus be briefly described as follows ; the 

 list of measurements is taken from specimens in the British 

 Museum collection : — 



$ adult. Like A. nisus, being barred transversely up to 

 the throat, which is white, with a more or less well-marked 

 dark line down the middle, formed by the very narrow black 

 or greyish-black shaft-stripes to the feathers. Fourth primary 

 quill longest and considerably longer than the fifth. 



