

BUTEO SOLITAKIUS, 

 10. 



"Brown Hawks or Kites," Cook, [Last] Voy. Pacif. Ocean, ii. p. 227 (1784). 



Buteo solitarius, Peale,U.S. Expl. Exped., Birds, p. 62, pi. xvi* (1848) ; Hartlaub, Arch. f. Natur- 



gesch. 1852, i. p. 131 ; Sclater, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1878, p. 348 ; id. Ibis, 1879, p. 92 ; id. Rep. 



Voy. ' Challenger/ Birds, p. 96, pi. xxi* (1881) ; Gurney, List Diurn. B. Prey, p. 64 (1884). 

 Pandion solitarius, Cassin, U.S. Expl. Exped., Mamm. & Orn. p. 97, pi. iv* (1858) ; Dole, Proc. 



Bost. Soc. N. H. 1869, p. 295 ; id. Hawaiian Alman. 1879, p. 42. 

 Pandion (Polioaetus) solitarius, G. R. Gray, Cat. B. Trop. Isl. p. 1 (1859) ; id. Hand-list, i. p. 15 



(1869). 

 Onychotes gruberi, Bidgway, Proc. Acad. N. S. Philad. 1870, p. 149; id. Rep. U.S. Geol. & Geogr. 



Surv, 1876, p. 135; Baird, Brewer, & Ridgway, Hist. N. Amer. B. iii. p. 254 (1874) ; Sharpe, 



Cat. B. Br. Mus. i. p. 158 (1874) ; Gurney, Ibis, 1876, p. 476 ; id. op. cit. 1881, p. 396 



pi. xii.*; id. List Diurn. B. Prey, p. 71 (1884). 

 Polioaetus solitarius, Sharpe, Cat. B. Br. Mus. i. p. 452 (1874) . 

 Onychotes solitarius, Ridgway, Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus. 1885, p. 38. 

 Buteo {Onychotes) solitarius, Gurney, Ibis, 1891, p. 21 (posthum.). 



* Figurce notabiles. 



When Captain Cook discovered the Sandwich Islands on his last voyage, " Brown Hawks 

 or Kites " are said to have been observed, though apparently no specimen of them was 

 then procured ; they were therefore not brought to the notice of scientific men until 

 Peale returned from the U.S. Exploring Expedition in the ' Vincennes' and ' Peacock.' 

 He only observed the bird on the island of Hawaii, but he gives a brief account of its 

 habit of sitting " solitary on dead trees patiently watching small birds, which constitute 

 its principal food." No examples were contained in the collection of the Expedition, 

 most of the birds from Hawaii being lost in the wreck of the 'Peacock'; but Peale 

 described and figured as Buteo solitarius a specimen of which he says it was " obtained 

 near Karakakoa Bay by the Rev. Mr. Forbes, Presbyterian missionary on that station ; 

 he transmitted it to Mr. J. K. Townsend, who kindly loaned it to be drawn." 

 Judge Dole, however, in the ' Proceedings of the Boston Society' for 1869, states that 

 this species is not confined to Hawaii, but is found also on Niihau and Molokai. 

 Though Cassin, in 1858, by some misconception referred it to the genus Pandion, 

 and as late as 1870 Mr. Ridgway redescribed it in one of its phases under the title of 

 Onychotes gruberi, these errors were not allowed to remain long uncorrected ; while the 

 late Mr. Gurney 's notes written for this work effectually settle the whole question. 



