1S65.] Scientific Intelligence. 281 



melanops, (Vt.), his russatus, an Australian species, of which he obtain- 

 ed a single specimen near Madras in the month of June (i. e. during 

 the southern winter), and which is now in the Society's museum : 

 of course an exceedingly rare and accidental straggler. The Indian 

 Neophron turns out to be distinct and new, N. orientalis, nobis. It is 

 not the Yultur meleagris of Pallas, which he describes as a rarity in 

 the Taurian Chersonesus, and which is the black-billed N. percnop- 

 terus. Four of our rarest Falconidce I have made out to be Japanese 

 species, all priorly named by us ' insulars.' 1. Accipiter nisoides, 

 nobis (gularis, Schl., of which he notes a specimen from Nipal !) — 2. 

 Buteo aquilinus (v. leucocephala), Hodgson (hemilasius, Schl.), — 3. 

 B. pjlumipes, H. (Japonicus } Schl.), — and 4. Poliornis pygmceus 

 (Buteo pygmceus, nobis, B. pyrrhogmys, Schl.), of which Heifer obtain- 

 ed a specimen in the Tenasserim provinces. Athene castanotus, nobis, 

 of Ceylon, is recognised as distinct, from castanopterus of Java by 

 Schlegel, Jerdon's No. 145 is not Tochus gingalensis (yerus), but 

 T. griseus (Buceros griseus, Latham, B. cineraceus, Sem.), as distin- 

 guished from T. gingalensis of Ceylon, which, together with the other, 

 inhabits that island. The two were discriminated by Layard {Ann. 

 Mag. N. H. 1854, XIII, 260), though he describes both under cinga- 

 lemis ; and he also indicates a second-Hydrocissa (akin to H. albiros- 

 tris and H. conoisus) as inhabiting the mountains of Ceylon. Spilor- 

 nis oaclia inhabits Ceylon in addition to Sp. cheela ; and the Parda- 

 lotus pipra of Lesson is a second Cinghalese Prionochilus (seu 

 Piprisoma) unknown to Layard. The large crimson Ghrysocolaptes of 

 Ceylon will rank as G. Striclclandi (Layard, v. carlotta, Malherbe), 

 erroneously figured by Jerdon in his III. Ind. Orn. as Bracliyptermis 

 C'eylonus I No. 197 should be Megalaima Hodgsoni, Bonap, of N. E. 

 India and the whole Indo-Chinese provinces, as far at least as Cambo- 

 jia; where the species is mistaken by Schlegel for the Javanese 

 corvina, which is wholly unknown in those parts : and M. viridis 

 (apud Schlegel), of Java is quite distinct from M. viridis (verus) o 

 S. India, and is probably the true lineata, Vt., as Schlegel himself 

 suggests. He also recognises the identity of No. 42 with the leuco- 

 rypha of Pallas. The latter holds just the same relationship to 

 H. rustica, which H. hyperythra (of Ceylon) holds to H. Daurica ; 

 also Falco rulen apud Schlegel (the Shcihia) to F. pcregrinus, 



