BROWN HAWK. 
Sharpe. Gotjld. 
Thighs chestnut. Thighs dark brown, crossed with 
spots of reddish-buff. 
Tail brown, tipped with white and Tail brown, crossed with ferruginous 
barred with rufous. bars and tipped with light brown. 
The small differences seen in the above descriptions would be easily 
referable to the personal equation, especially in dealing with such a bird as 
the present one. Sharpe used as his decisive factor in determining the 
two “ species ” the coloration of the thighs, which is at the present time 
obviously seen to be valueless. He neglected Gould’s repeated assertion 
about the smaller size of the Western bird and apparently laid a great 
deal of weight upon the fact that Gould considered the uniform bird the 
adult of the bird above described. Further, he omitted to take into 
consideration the undoubted fact that the type of F. berigora came from New 
South Wales. 
However, Sharpe described the very distinct brown bird under the 
name H. orientalis, a nomen nudum of Schlegel, and of course his 
determination, as an authority, carried weight and his nomination was 
accepted. It should be recorded, however, the practical Ramsay took care 
to note his experience disagreed by quoting Sharpe’s detailed diagnosis of 
his two species in full, and adding a note : “I have here given Mr. Sharpe’s 
descriptions, as they have in all probability been taken from the type 
specimens, or from others carefully compared with the types of this species, 
for although I have examined a large series of both adults and young of both 
sexes from various parts of Australia, widely separated, I cannot find any 
which coincide either with Mr. Gould’s description of the adults or with that 
given by Mr. Sharpe in the British Museum Catalogue, neither of these 
agreeing with such birds as, until further proof to the contrary, I must 
consider to be the adults.” \ 
As quoted above, De Vis openly disagreed with Sharpe’s conclusions, 
but generally these were accepted by Australian naturalists. Thus Campbell 
commented : “ We possess two species of Brown Hawks in Australia — one 
frequenting the eastern part of the Continent and the other the western, but 
individuals often overfly their bounds or exchange localities ; therefore it is 
not to be wondered that some of the early authors got a bit mixed in their 
nomenclature. The names now stand Hieracidea orientalis for the Brown 
Hawk, H. berigora for the Western Brown Hawk. It is rather unfortunate 
that ‘ berigora,"* which is the aboriginal name for the bird in New South 
Wales, should have been applied permanently to the Western species.” 
VOL. V. 
273 
