OUR INDIAN PELICANS. 487 
entered at p. 387 of the Museum Catalogue under the head 
of Falco barbarus, and the larger, which is presumably a female, 
is one of the two specimens entered at p. 389 under the title 
of Falco babylonicus, to which species the other specimen 
from Nepal, also thus entered, does appear to me really to 
belong. The following are my measurements of these 
Falcons :-— 
Middle 
Wing. Tail. Tarsus. toe, 8, w. 
in. in. in. in. 
Presumed ¢ ... wat eceletic() 5°80 1:7 1°85 
Presumed ¢ ows peceloral) 6-00 170 2°04 
Our Indian Pelicans.* 
Mucu confusion and difference of opinion has prevailed 
as to the nomenclature and identity of the species of Pelicans 
which occur in India. This genus is one in which I have 
long taken a peculiar interest, and which, considering the 
difficulties which attend the preservation and stowage of 
such huge birds, is now tolerably well represented (by thirty- 
one specimens) in my museum.t 
Altogether nine or ten species of this genus are at present 
admitted, of which P. australis, Stephen; P. conspicillatus, 
Tem. from Australia; P. erythrorhynchus, Latham, from 
N. America; P. molinea, G. R. Gray of 8. America and P. fuscus, 
Lin., from the Gulf of Mexico and California, cannot in 
any way concern us; there remain five species which occur, 
or are supposed, or have been asserted to occur, within our 
limits. 
These readily divide themselves into two natural groups. 
Inthe former of these the frontal feathers extend forwards 
in a point to the culmen of the bill. In the second this point 
is truncated, and the feathers of the forehead terminate more or 
less squarely in a line at right angles and more or less concave 
to the base of the culmen. According to Mr. D. G. Elliot, whose 
monograph of the genus (P. Z. 8., 1869, p. 571) is by far the 
most complete synopsis which has yet appeared, we should 
include (of birds that may concern us)— 
* [NoTE,—This paper, written in 1873, but put aside because 1 hoped for 
better materials than I then possessed, is printed now without alterations, 
because it puts on record facts that may be useful to other enquirers, and my 
materials, having now been transferred ta the British Museum, I shall never 
now have an opportunity, if L even had the time, to revise it.—A. O. H.] 
¢ I think when my collection was made over to the British Museum that it 
must have contained nearly one hundred specimens, 
