AUSTRALIAN GOSHAWK. 
agree, the differences must be due to individual variation, or it might have 
been an aberration. If Lesson’s bird really came from West Australia his 
name would have priority and must be used. When Salvadori lumped all the 
birds from Timor, New Guinea and West Australia he confused this issue, and 
at the present time the bird cannot be re-examined. Recent workers on the 
Moluccan and New Guinea fauna differentiate A. torquatus specifically from 
A. fasciatus, so that a conclusion, when the bird is available, should be easy. 
Thus in 1898, ignorant of North’s simultaneous conclusion, Hartert {Nov. Zool.^ 
Vol. V., p. 122) had written : “ I cannot bring myself to unite with A. torquatm 
the Australian A. cmentus, which seems to differ in being more regularly 
barred below and in having a longer tarsus. The birds from New Guinea 
are probably not separable from the latter.” 
This year, however, Rothschild and Hartert {Nov. Zooh, Vol. XXII., 
Feb. 12, 1915) have given the following account under the name : 
“ p. 52. Accipiter fasciatus polycryptus. 
“ ‘ Astur fasciatus ’ was first described by Messrs. Vigors and Horsfield 
from ‘ Austraha ’ in 1827, and this name, as pointed out by Hartert in 1905, 
stands before A. approximans on the same page, which latter name has been 
arbitrarily chosen for these hawks by Gould, Sharpe and others. Mr. Mathews, 
in his most recent list of the Birds of Australia, pp. 103-104, separates three 
races : 
(of Urospiza, as he calls them) fasciatus fasciatus {—approximans) 
from the eastern parts of Australia. 
“A. fasciatus cruentus, from Southern and Mid-west Australia. 
“A. fasciatus didimus from Melville Island and the Northern Territory. 
“ We have nine adult females, and one adult male (besides some young 
birds which are of no use for distinguishing such closely-allied subspecies) from 
Queensland, an adult pair from the Alligator River in ‘ Northern Territory ’ 
and an adult pair from West Kimberley and Point Cloates. These seem to 
confirm the three races accepted by Mr. Mathews. The two birds from the 
Alligator River are not so brownish, but more reddish underneath, and the 
white cross bars in the male are narrower and more numerous. The female 
from Point Cloates and the male from West Kimberley are somewhat larger, 
and the underside is more cinnamon rufous, less brownish : the white bars 
are rather narrow. 
“ The series from Queensland would be A. fasciatus fasciatus, the pair 
from the Northern Territory A. fasciatus didimus, the pair from Point Cloates 
and West Kimberley A. /. cruentus. 
“ In addition to these races, which require further confirmation by better 
series from the northern and western parts of Australia, we have another from 
VOL. V. 
65 
