BROWN HAWK. 
Batey {Emu, Vol. VII., p. 3, 1907), wrote regarding Victoria : “ Still a 
permanent [species] on the old location ; nests there yet : never saw it hunting. 
Long since, by the side of a nest, a dead snake was seen, hung on a branch. 
This harmless Hawk is ruthlessly shot by excursionists from Melbourne.” 
When Hartert received birds from Australia he recorded {Nov. ZooL, 
Vol. XII., p. 208, 1905) : “ leracidea berigora (Vig. and Horsf. $ Nullagine, 
16.iv.1901 (No. R. 155.). Breast and abdomen cinnamon rufous-brown. 
Patch in the middle of abdomen whitish with brown bars. . . . These 
three specimens have the general colour above rufous and the thighs rufous, 
and belong thus to the form called berigora in Cat. Birds, I., p. 421 
{occidentalis Gould). I doubt whether they are specifically or subspecificaUy 
different, but cannot prove the contrary yet. 
leracidea orientalis Sharpe. 1 2 South Alligator River. These 
birds are above dark brown, and have brown thighs, and belong to the birds 
for which Dr. Sharpe adopted the name orientalis. A specimen from the 
Fitzroy River, North-west Australia, received from Mr. Robert Hall, is 
below like this dark bird, but above decidedly rufous ! I appeal to the 
Australian field-naturalists to study these birds, and to collect series of 
paired adult birds and their young, in order to find out if they are mere 
aberrations (so-called ‘ phases ’) or species. They do not seem to be 
geographical representatives (subspecies), and I doubt whether they are 
species.” 
A note relative to the Tasmanian bird may be here quoted from North’s 
Austr. Mus. Spec. Cat., No. 1, Vol. III., p. 283, 1912 : “ Dr. Lonsdale Holden 
stated . . . these birds are common : their note is a harsh cry not unlike 
a Black-cheeked Falcon’s, but they are not so constantly noisy as that 
bird. . . . On the 22nd November, 1904, on the hill side above Wentworth, 
Bellerive, Mr. Harrison climbed to a nest in the top of a tall Gum-tree, about 
one hundred and twenty feet from the ground, and what we thought was a 
Crow’s nest, but on bis nearing it out fiew two half -fledged young Brown 
Hawks, and a third remained in the nest. The young birds scrambled into 
concealment when they had fluttered to earth ; at any rate we could only 
find one of them after a prolonged search, though the ground was by no 
means thickly covered with herbage and bushes. The one caught still had 
much down on the head and back, but the markings on what feathers had 
grown plainly show it to be Hieracidea orientalis. We saw nothing of the 
old birds.” 
I noted in the Ibis, 1914, p. 109, that my collector, Mr. J. P. Rogers, 
noticed that, to his eyes, the birds collected on Melville Island differed 
from those seen (and obtained) in North-west Australia. I agreed and 
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