1870.] A Contribution to Malayan Ornithology. 281 



with Africa may have taken place, to which Professor Huxleyin 

 his recent (1870) address to the G-eological Society made allusion. 

 At that time, the African fauna began to immigrate, partially 

 mixed with, and in the plain country partially also suppressed 

 the remaining elements of the original Malay fauna which could 

 not have been sufficiently quickly nourished from the east, as the 

 waters of the Bay of Bengal have probably at that time washed the 

 bases of the yet little elevated Himalaya mountains, and thus main- 

 tained a separation of the two faunas. By all these operations the 

 fauna of the more elevated Southern Indian districts appears to 

 have been little affected. — These are of course mere speculations, 

 but they have a high degree of probability, supported by the 

 differences in the fauna, which were pointed out several years ago 

 by Mr. W. T. Blanford. 



Fam. FALCONIDjF. 



1. HlERAX FRINGILLARIUS, Drap. 



Wing very nearly 3£", tail 2£", tarsus \\." 



A Malacca specimen exactly corresponds with Drapiez's 

 figure on pi. 21 of Dictionaire Class, d'hist. naturelle. The Java- 

 nese Hierax, called FT. ccerulescens, Linn., as figured by Hors- 

 field in his " Researches in Java," and generally identified with 

 the above species, would appear to be a different bird. It is consi- 

 derably larger, the loreal region in front of the eye is white, the last 

 tertiaries white spotted, and the white bars on the inner webs of 

 the other wing feathers more numerous, while fringillarius has the 

 loreal region black, the white supraciliary ridge above the eye in- 

 terrupted, and the last tertiaries almost wholly black. In other 

 respects both are (except size) almost identical, the tibial feathers 

 being black externally and rufous brown internally, (see also Hume, 

 in " Scrap Book," Calcutta, 1869, p. 111). 



Should the larger Java bird be the female of fringillarius ? It is 

 difficult to arrive at any very satisfactory conclusion on this point. 

 Temminck's figure in the PL Col. represents a bird, the 

 wing of which is about 3f" ; one specimen has the white supraci- 

 liary band nearly interrupted above the eye, the other has it 

 distinctly continuous. A specimen, in the Society's collection, from 



