328 Letters, Announcements, &;c. 



The New-Zealand Hieracidete are rather abnormal members 

 of the Falconine series ; for it is rare to find a bird which, 

 when young, is uniform above, and becomes barred when it 

 is old ; nor do they here closely coincide with their Australian 

 congeners, excepting as regards their uniformly cloudy breasts 

 when young. The sexes of the Australian Hieracidea do not 

 appear to differ very markedly in size, an inch in the length 

 of the female's wing being in the Australian species of the 

 genus as much as the male yields to his more powerful con- 

 sort ; therefore the fact recorded by Dr. Buller that the fe- 

 male of H. brunnea exceeds the male by 2 inches in length of 

 wing (and that too in the smallest species of the genus) is 

 surprising, and will require ratification. Thus the analogy 

 of the Australian species, to say nothing of the matured 

 opinions of Dr. Buller and Mr. Gurney (and, I gather from 

 his letter, of Captain Hutton also), would almost preclude us 

 from believing that a bird measuring 135 inches in length, 

 with a wing of 9'45, can be the mate of a female measuring 17'5 

 inches in length, with a wing of 11*5, were it not for the gra- 

 dual gradation shown below. The difference would appear too 

 great ; but then what shall be said of the species after com- 

 paring the following table of measurements, drawn from the 

 published writings of Dr. Buller, Mr. Gurney, and Captain 

 Hutton, and added to those of fifteen specimens in the national 

 collection (nearly all of the latter, being I regret to say, with- 

 outrecord of sex) ? Still they ought to have been approximately 

 determinable if Dr. Buller's proportions of the birds hold 

 good ; and this is apparently /the gist of Captain Hutton's 

 measurements, on which he makes "no comment." This, 

 however, I feel bound to do, as it is the duty of the cabinet 

 naturalist to weigh well the labours of practised observers in 

 the field, while the latter should receive with equal respect the 

 results placed before them by the workers at home, who are 

 often in a position, from the examination of large series in 

 the museums and private collections, to arrive at very sound 

 conclusions concerning the relations of birds. I thus venture 

 to give the measurements of the wing in our national series, 

 adding those of the authors above mentioned. 



