STRAY FEATHERS. 



Vol. III.] MAY, 1875. [No. 4, 



l$laciH v tnmrttt3 Mm, Westerman. 



Wester man, Bijdragen tot de Dierkunde ; I., p. 29; PL 12. 

 Schleget, Handl. Ois. I., PL 1, Fig. 6, p. 168 ; — id. 



Mus-Pays-bas, Pemes, p. 7. 

 Sharpe, P. Z. S., 1871, p. 502. 

 See also, Gurney, Trans Z. S., VI., p. 117, PL XXIX. for 



M. Anderssoni, Gum. 



I have recently received from Malewoon (which is situated 

 at the southern extremity of the Tenasserim Provinces), a 

 splendid adult male of this rare and interesting species. The 

 specimen was shot by Mr. A. L. Hough on the 14th of March 

 last, and was carefully measured in the flesh, the colours of the 

 soft parts being also recorded. 



Few of my Indian readers have probably ever even heard 

 of the genus to which this curious bird belongs. It was 

 instituted in 1848 by Dr. G. F. Westerman for a specimen of 

 this very species, which had been obtained at Malacca. {Since 

 then altogether four or five specimens have, I believe, been 

 received in Europe from the same locality, and a second very 

 closely allied species of the same genus has been discovered 

 in Damara Land, South Africa, by the late Mr. Charles 

 J. Andersson, and named after that lamented ornithologist by 

 Mr. Gurney (l.c.) 



The first point of interest about the bird, therefore, is that 

 like Polihierax Feildeni, its only known very near ally or 

 congener is African. 



But it is the structure of the bird itself that is most 

 noticeable. It has a small and comparatively feeble bill, with 

 the culmen, except quite at the base, pinched up into a 

 sharp, almost knife-like, edge. The gape is enormous, reminding 

 one of that of Podager and other fissirostral genera, and 

 extends back to quite below the middle of the eye. There ai*e 

 two faint sinuations on the cutting edge of the upper mandible, 

 possibly analogues of the double teeth in Baza, The cere is 



~t 



