4 Notices and Descriptions of various New [No. 169. 



termed by him N. pallidas, and which I refer to Falco indicus cirratus 

 of Ray (v. F. cirratus, Shaw), seems to be exclusively a hill bird, as are 

 also our other crested species, Sp. pulcher and Sp. Kieneri. 



The variation in development of crest here noticed of Sp. nipalensis, 

 is both curious and instructive : a tendency to such prolongation of the 

 central occipital plumes being observable in various other Falconida, 

 as especially in Hiera'etus (Kaup, v. Aquila,) pennatus, and slightly in 

 Buteo canescens ; while in the Indian Pernis, which is currently regarded 

 as a peculiar species by the name P. cristata, the crest is very com- 

 monly reduced to a mere rudiment (which might remain unnoticed if 

 not looked for), while in other specimens the feathers composing it are 

 prolonged an inch beyond those they immediately impend. Hence I 

 have some suspicion whether the species is really distinct from P. 

 apivora ; and I also doubt whether more than a single species of this 

 very variable bird has been yet discovered. All those which are men- 

 tioned by Mr. G. R. Gray, I would thus provisionally reduce to one, 

 with the exception of my Lophastur Jerdoni, (J. A. S. XI, 464,) which 

 is erroneously referred by Mr. Gray to this genus ; it being strictly 

 an aberrant Baza, and perhaps identical with B. magnirostris of the 

 Philippine Islands, mentioned by Mr. G. R. Gray, though I suspect as 

 yet undescribed.* While on this group, I may further remark that 

 Buteo cristatus, Vieillot, has been currently regarded as a synonyme of 

 Baza lophotes ; but, as described in the Diet. Class., where moreover 

 Australia is assigned as its habitat, it can neither be B. lophotes nor 

 B. subcristata figured in Gould's ' Birds of Australia' ; and if not a " Buse 

 Bondre'e Huppe'e," as he terms it (or Honey Buzzard), it is not impro- 

 bably the young of Aquila ? morphnoides, Gould, exhibiting a coloration 

 analogous to that of the immature plumage of its nearly allied congener, 

 Hiera'etus pennatus, and in such case ranking as H. cristatus, (Vieillot). 



* I had scarcely written the above, when the Society received a second fine collection 

 of Scandinavian objects of Natural History from the University of Christiania. A 

 specimen of Pernis apivora is included, and I find the species is distinct from P. 

 cristata : the great variation of plumage is the same in both, and the varieties corres- 

 pond; but in P. apivora, in addition to there not being the slightest tendency to the 

 formation of an occipital crest, the beak is conspicuously smaller, and the toes are 

 much shorter. Thus, in two specimens of exactly the same general dimensions, the 

 middle toe of P. apivora, from its separation from the next to the insertion of the 

 talons, measures an inch and a half; while in P. cristata it measures an inch and 

 seven-eighths, with the rest of the foot in proportion. The reticulate scutation of the 

 ley and foot is also much more prominent than in P. apivora. 



