176 Notices and Descriptions of various new [No. 159. 



Poonjee ; and forwarded by the late lamented Dr. Griffith to the Muse- 

 um of the Honorable Company. 



Of the Spizdetus rvfitinctus, McClelland and Horsfield, Proc. 

 ZooL Soc. 1839, p. 153, Mr. Strickland informs me, that "Dr. 

 Horsfield now classes this as a Limnaetus, and it seems only to differ 

 in having the lower half of the tarsus bare and scutate. The beak has 

 a lateral undulation. Wing ten inches and a quarter, and tail eight 

 inches. Fourth and fifth quills equal and longest. The breast is 

 barred brown and white, the bars and their intervals being each about 

 a quarter of an inch wide, and on the thighs about an eighth of an 

 inch wide. The feathers of the breast have two brown bars on each. 

 Tail with four light and four darker brown bars." As this is one of 

 the very few Indian Raptores still wanting to the Society's museum, I 

 shall also quote the original notice of it, as follows : — " Upper part of 

 the body dark brown, with slight undulations of a deeper tint ; breast 

 and throat longitudinally striped with brown ; belly and under surface 

 of the wings white, transversely barred with brown : tarse feathered 

 to the lower third, each feather marked with fine transverse bars ; 

 the rest shielded : the beak short, much hooked, and sharp : claws and 

 toes strong and formidable. 



" It inhabits the banks of the Boorampooter and other rivers in 

 Assam, where it conceals itself in bushes and grass, along the verge of 

 the water, seizing such fishes as approach the surface within its reach." 

 This is also said to be the habit of the large naked-legged Owls which 

 constitute the genus Ketupa. 



Another species wanting to the Society's museum, and also distin- 

 guished by partially feathered tarse, may be described as 



Buteo aquilinus, Hodgson. Length (of apparently a young female) 

 about twenty- six inches, of which the tail measures eleven and a half; 

 wing eighteen inches and a quarter ; beak to forehead (in a straight 

 line,) one and a half, and two inches and one-eighth to gape ; tarse 

 three and one-eighth, and plumed anteriorly for an inch and three- 

 quarters. General colour hair-brown, the feathers edged with dull 

 rufescent-brown, and their white bases shewing conspicuously about 

 the nape ; ear-coverts and sides of the head white, more or less dark- 

 shafted ; throat white, streaked with brown, the fore-neck coloured 

 like the back, and the breast white for the greater portion of each 



