BUTEO PLUMIPES. 
33 
With age the thighs and flanks commence first to darken and the central rectrices lose their plainly defined bars, the 
brown hue gradually diminishing at the edge of the feather. 
The following is a description of the Southern Ceylon example above alluded to : — 
Head, hind neck, back, and wings sepia-brown ; the mantle, wing-coverts, and rump with moderately deep rufous 
margins ; the concealed edges of the scapulars and wing-coverts indented with whitish bars ; the margins of the 
head and hind-neck feathers fulvescent whitish ; the nuchal feathers dark brown at the tips, elongated as a rudi- 
mentary crest and showing much white at the base ; primaries very dark brown, washed with grey on the outer 
webs, particularly about the notch ; the inner webs almost entirely white from the notch upwards ; secondaries 
paler brown, the internal portions white, crossed with narrow incomplete bars of dark brown ; lateral upper tail- 
coverts rufous at the edges, and the concealed portions barred with rufeseent white ; general hue of tail rufous 
ashy, crossed with numerous narrow bars of dark brown, tipped with fulvous, the subterminal bar broader than 
the rest, the internal portions of all the lateral feathers white ; inner webs of the central pair paling into white 
near the shaft. 
Loral plumes dark with white bases ; a narrow blackish line beneath the eye and a brownish postorbital stripe, beneath 
which the ear-coverts are whitish, narrowly lineated with rufous-brown ; chin and throat buff-white, openly 
striated with narrow lines of brown and bounded on either side by a plainly marked brown moustachial streak ; 
chest and under surface whitish buff, the former with large rufous-brown terminal patches almost covering the 
feather ; the breast with smaller and indented central patches of the same ; lower flanks well covered with brown, 
and the sides of the abdomen marked with pointed bars of rufous-brown ; thighs in front and at the sides brown, 
with indistinct bars of rufous; interiorly fulvous, patched with brown; under tail-coverts with a few terminal 
spots of brown ; under wing-coverts rufous, tipped paler and centred with brown ; greater series uniform dark brown. 
Ohs. The African Buzzard ( Buteo desertorum), with which Indian examples of the present species have until lately been 
confounded, is a smaller bird, the limit of the length of wing in the male being, according to Mr. Gurney’s investi- 
gations, 13-5 to 15-4 inches, and in the female 14-3 to 15-85 inches. In their plumage, however, some specimens of 
this species so closely resemble the Indian bird that it is difficult to define the differences which exist by a mere 
description. It is not my province here to go into this matter, as the African bird is not likely to find its way to 
Ceylon. I will remark, however, that the dimensions of my bird from Southern Ceylon are low enough to relegate 
it to the ranks of the African species ; but the locality in which it was shot, coupled with the fact of Lord Tweeddale 
possessing an unmistakable example from Ceylon, makes it necessary to refer my biid (in spite of its diminutive 
size and comparative large amount of bare tarsi) to the Asiatic form. Mr. Gurney, who carefully examined the 
specimen, supports this view, and informs me that he has never heard of a true B. desertorum having been procured 
to the eastward of Erzeroom. furthermore Mr. Hume, in his exhaustive notice of the various Indian Buzzards 
(‘ Stray feathers,’ vol. iii. p. 58), removes B. desertorum from the Indian avifauna, assigning the specimens from 
the Ailghiris, formerly referred by him to this species, to the subject of the present article. 
Distribution. — This interesting Buzzard, the Asiatic representative of the European B. vulgaris, is a very 
rare visitor to Ceylon, which island forms the most southerly limit of its wanderings in the cool season. Not 
more than two instances of its capture are known to me — the first of which is that of a large female in the 
museum of the Marquis of Tweeddale, and the second that of the example above alluded to in my own collection. 
The former was procured about the year 1865 by Mr. Spencer Chapman, but from what exact locality his 
Lordship is unable to inform me. I understand that the major portion of Mr. Chapman’s collections was 
made in the west and north-west of the island, in one of which districts the Buzzard was probably met with in 
its passage from the Malabar coast to Ceylon. The specimen in my possession was shot in October 1871 at 
Maha Modern, a few miles to the north of the port of Galle, by Mr. Wylde, a gentleman for some time 
resident at the latter place. It had been haunting the vicinity of the bungalow for several days, having made 
its appearance there after the prevalence of high northerly winds, which usually bring down many of the 
Ceylonese migrants from the coast of India*. 
Dr. Jcrdon (‘Ibis,’ 1871, p.338) writes, under the head of Buteo desortorum, that this species has been 
sent from Ceylon ; but he probably refers to the specimen above mentioned as procured by Mr. Chapman, 
and which Mr. II olds worth alludes to in his catalogue (toe. cit.) . 
* This bird was referred to by me (‘ Stray Feathers,’ vol. i. p. 488) as Butastur teesa : this, however, was a mistake, 
as the latter is a much smaller bird, and is now removed to a different subfamily, chiefly on account of the character of 
the scales on the binder part of the tarsus. 
F 
