NOTES. 231 



Clearly this cannot possibly apply to any specimen, old or 

 young, of either caudacuta or nudipes. 



For the present Indian readers had better follow my list and 

 retain our Indian birds as nudipes ; unless some extraordinary 

 fatality has attended my collections, all the Himalayan birds 

 belonging to one type, and all the Australian to another, the 

 two forms are specifically separable. 



Mr. Dresser will probably be able to throw more light on 

 the question. 



I have been trying to make out the two species Accipiter 

 gularis, and virgatus. I find that gularis occurs in the Himalayas 

 from Sikkim to Mussoorie, and that in this species the wings of 

 males (nine specimens) vary from 7'6 to 7'8, while in the 

 females ( eight specimens) they vary from 8'0 to 8*2 



The true virgatus also occurs in this same region, and also 

 further west in the Himalayas, and throughout the entire 

 Continent and Peninsula of India and Burmah and the 

 Malay Peninsula. The bird is variable to a degree in size, but 

 it never approaches gularis. I have only 26 specimens, but in 

 these the wings of males vary from 575 in a tiny bird, appa- 

 rently just out of the nest, from the Andamans, to 6*9 in an 

 old adult obtained near Darjeeling, while the wings of females 

 vary from 7 - in a very young Malayan specimen to 7'5 in 

 the nearly adult ones from the same locality — 7'3 being an old 

 adult female from the Andamans. 



When we come to Accipiter stevensoni, I feel that I am on 

 very insecure ground, and I fear that I may not have identified 

 the species correctly. My reason for doubting this is, that both 

 Messrs. Gurney and Sharpe treat stevensoni as if it was a race 

 of gularis and virgatus, whereas the birds that I have called 

 stevensoni are distinguished at once from both these forms by the 

 absence of the central gular stripe, which is exhibited by every 

 single one of my forty-three examples of gularis and virgatus, 

 old and young, and no trace of which appears in any of my 

 supposed stevensoni, male, female or young, and no trace of 

 which I may add, is shown in Mr. Gurney's original figure of 

 this species (ibis, 1863. pi. XI), or that in P. Z. S. 1878, p. 936. 



In my stevensoni or supposed stevensoni, the wings vary 

 from 6-4 to 67 in males, and 7-3 to 7*6 in females. 



I have admitted Hypolais pallida, Hemp, and Ehr., in our 

 Indian list, but I am somewhat doubtful whether I have been 

 ri^bt in this. Pallida does occur, I believe, in Western Belu- 

 chistan, aud so would be included in our larger list, but 

 the Sind birds, on the strength of which I admitted this 



