1865.] 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 (7. 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 Vultur 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 Falconide 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. plumipes, H. (Japonicus, Schl.),—and 4. Poliornis pygmaeus 
(Buteo pygmeus, nobis, B. pyrrhogmys, Schl.), of which Helfer 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 Tockus gingalensis (verus), but 
7. griseus (Buceros griseus, Latham, B. cineraceus, Sem.), as distin- 
guished from 7. 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- 
lensis ; and he also indicates a second Hydrocissa (akin to H. albiros- 
tris and H. conoisus) as inhabiting the mountains of Ceylon. Spilor- 
nis bacha 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 Chrysocolaptes of 
Ceylon will rank as C. Strickland: (Layard, v. carlotta, Malherbe), 
erroneously figured by Jerdon in his Jl/. Ind. Orn. as Brachypternus 
Ceylonus !_ 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 J. viridis 
(apud Schlegel), of Java is quite distinct from JZ. 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 Shdhia) to F. peregrinus, 
