360 A Y¥IRST LIST OF THE BIRDS 
Himalayas, and appears not to be uncommon anywhere in 
these latter hills, from Murree to Darjeeling.” 
This remark, however, must now be considered to be cancelled ; 
the birds that I assigned to desertorwm from numerous parts 
of the Himalayas were only, Iam now convinced, small spe- 
cimens of ferov (many, if not all, of the stages of plumage, 
of which are precisely similar to stages of the South African 
Buzzard), while the Southern Indian supposed desertorum, must, 
I believe, be assigned to plumipes. 
It may be noticed that prima facie this is what might have 
been expected. The Malabar Coast and the hills of Southern 
India, in consequence, as I am inclined to believe, of their heavy 
rainfall, comprise a fauna closely allied to that of the Terai, 
Sikhim, and what we may call the Indo-Burmese Province. If 
an African species were to be looked for, it would rather be 
in the open Deccan, Sindh, or Rajpootana, or the dry plains 
of Upper India or of Upper Pegu. The last place it would be 
likely to occur in, would be the Neilgherries and the Assamboo 
Hills, and that the Buzzard under consideration is not uncom- 
mon, in these latter is a strong & priort argument against its 
being desertorum and in favor of its being plumipes. 
The importance of this consideration is enhanced by the 
fact, that while characteristic and accurately sexed specimens 
of plumipes and desertorum can doubtless be separated, at 
a glance, it becomes I believe, almost impossible to discriminate 
some unsexed and non-characteristic specimens. They may 
be either female desertorum, with rather abnormally fully-plumed 
tarsi, or male plumipes, with little-plumed tarsi. 
And here it is tobe noticed that the pluming of the tarsus 
is a very unstable character; in each species the extent of the 
bare portion of the tarsus varies very materially, and this not only 
if the apparent bare portion of the tarsus be considered (in 
consequence of the feathers being longer or shorter according 
to season and perhaps climate), but also in the actual distance 
to which the tarsus is feathered, counting this only to the root 
(and not the tip) of the lowest feather. Measured in this 
latter way, which is perhaps the safest, I find that in a series of 
120 feroz, with wings varying from 16°25 in the smallest male 
to 19:25, in the largest female, the unfeathered portion of 
the front of the tarsus, varied from 2°4 to 1:5; and that not 
by any means according to size of bird, one male for in- 
stance, with a 16°8 wing, having 2°1 unfeathered, while a 
female, with a wing 19 has only 2:0 unfeathered. Nay, 
more than this, one typical ferox, a female, wing, 18:5; with the 
front of the tarsus unfeathered for 2:1; has a stripe of feathers 
running down the inside of each tarsus, to within 0°5 of its base. 
