OF THE TRAVANCORE HILLS. 367 
although in several specimens of /eror the scutation makes 
a decided approach to that of my specimen of agquilinus, in 
no single specimen out of 120 does it appear to be so thoroughly 
and entirely reticulate as in the present species. 
But besides this difference, there is a marked structural 
difference. The wing in this specimen, a female, is only 18:6, 
and we have several females of ferox in which the wing exceeds 
19, yet in none of these are the feet anything like so powerful, 
or the claws as large as in my specimen of aguilinus. 
In a fine female ferow with the wing the same size (18-6) 
the inner toe-claw measures, from root to point along the curve, 
exactly one inch, the same claw im aquilinus similarly 
measured is over 1°85. The other claws are also, but not 
quite proportionally, larger, in fact, the extra size of the inner 
toe-claw appears to be one characteristic of aquilinus. 
Besides this I do think that the bill is somewhat more 
powerful than in any specimen I have of feroz ; and it also 
seems to me, though I admit that this is not a good character, 
that the second quill is longer than it is in ferox, being not quite 
an inch shorter than the 3rd. 
On the whole, comparing this with perhaps the largest. series 
of ferox ever collected together in one place, I cannot avoid 
the conviction that it is distinct. I have only to add that 
as regards my specimen, the plumage is similar to that of many 
specimens of ferov in what I call the first stage, and that I have 
little doubt that rufous, brown, and dark specimens of it occur. 
When we turn from /ferox to plumipes, we find in this latter 
a precisely parallel series of types plumage, although the upper 
surface is apparently never so rufous as it is in some specimens 
in the first stage of the former. 
With the other stages I need not now concern myself but in 
regard to the dark, and as I conceive latest stage, I wish to 
make a few suggestions. 
Mr. Gurney, /bis, 1876, p. 369, remarks, & propos of the black 
stage :—“ To me it seems much more likely to be an accidental 
melanism, both from its great rarity and from the fact of its never 
having been observed either in China or Japan, but only in 
countries adjacent to the Himalayas—a circumstance which 
possibly may afford a parallel tothe occurrence in a similarly 
restricted, but more westerly, district of the melanistic phase 
of B. ferow.” 
Now as regards its rarity, it will have been seen that out 
of my 21 specimens, 6 are in the typical plumipes plumage, 
and 2 of the others, I may add, approach it very closely. 
It appears to me that this is the largest proportion of old 
adults that one could possibly expect to meet with, even in the 
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