Mr. R. B. Sharpe’s Catalogue of Accipitres. 209 
In reference to this subject, Mr. W. E. Brooks wrote to 
me in 1878 that all the specimens shot by him in Northern 
India “ had reddish-brown eyes (a very red-brown), both old 
and young.” 
The Norwich Museum possesses an adult male obtained at 
Agra by Capt. G. F. L. Marshall, who has marked on the 
ticket attached to it “ inides red.” 
An adult female from Secunderabad, which is also preserved 
in the Norwich Museum, is marked by the collector as having 
the irides “ blood-red ;”” but in the case of the nearly adult 
male and female from that locality, to which I have already 
referred, and which were in the collection of the late Lord 
Tweeddale, the irides of the female were noted by the col- 
lector as “‘ yellow,” and those of the male as “ bright yellow.” 
In Tenasserim and Burmah a variation in the colour of the 
iris of this species seems also to occur. 
Mr. Hume, in ‘Stray Feathers,’ vol. vi. p. 23, mentions 
an adult male shot at Moulmein, in which the irides were 
dark brown ; and the late Lord Tweeddale had another adult 
male, obtained at Tonghoo by Lieut. Wardlaw Ramsay, who 
had noted the irides as “ burnt brown.” On the other hand, 
Mr. Hume records in ‘Stray Feathers,’ vol. ili. p. 36, an 
adult female obtained by Mr. Oates in Upper Pegu, as having 
the irides “ bright yellow.” 
Further to the east, the female from Butuan in the island 
of Mindanao, in course of transition from immature to adult 
plumage, recorded by Lord 'Tweeddale in the P. Z. 8. for 
1877, p. 821, and to which I have already referred, was noted 
by the collector, Mr. Everett, as having the irides “ white.” 
This is the only instance I have met with of a white iris in P. 
ptilorhynchus, though in the closely allied P. apivorus I have 
seen young birds with the irides so faintly tinged with straw- 
colour as to be very nearly white. 
I have no information as to the colour of the iris in this 
species in any locality, other than those already mentioned, 
except Ceylon, in regard to which Captain Legge writes thus 
in his work on the birds of that island :—“ Iris golden yellow, 
yellow mottled with brown, or yellow with a pale outer circle, 
