247 
on Dr. Jerdon's ‘Birds of India.’ 
Austr. i. pi. 4), he remarks, is founded (leucosternus at least) on 
the absence of the black median stripes on the feathers of the 
white portion of the plumage, a character “ purely accidental/' 
as also in H. vocifer. This view is irreconcileable with the fact 
that these marks are invariably strongly developed in the Indian 
race, and are never seen in the Australian race; while in the 
Javan race (extending to Siam) they are present but only 
slightly developed, the white feathers being merely black-shafted. 
Specimens from Bouru, Gilolo, and Aru are of the true Austra¬ 
lian race, without even the shafts of the white feathers black and 
contrasting. Three Indian specimens and a Javan one were 
lately to be seen together in the Gardens of the Zoological 
Society, the difference between them being very conspicuous. 
Of the immense number which I have examined or beheld close 
in India, I certainly never saw even one resembling or approxi¬ 
mating to the Javanese bird. Upon one occasion I remember 
witnessing an extraordinary assemblage of “ Brahmini Kites/' 
collected to watch the dragging of the moat which surrounds 
the old fort at Budge-budge (on the bank of the Hugli below 
Calcutta). There were many hundreds of them, perched so 
close together on the surrounding trees that it appeared as if 
the branches would give way with the weight of them. 
The intermediate Javan race ( H. intermedius , ‘ Ibis/ 1865, 
p. 28), is possibly the result of intermixture; and it may be that 
there is a greater or less development of the black streaks in the 
Malayan province according to the proportions of that intermix¬ 
ture, constituting a gradation or transition from the Indian 
race to the Australian, as in some other instances where conter¬ 
minous races blend; and this would lead observers in that par¬ 
ticular zoological province to suppose the absence or amount 
of development of the streaks to be “ purely accidental." 
The near affinity of the fine large African Haliastur vocifer to 
the “ Brahmini Kite," noticed by Professor Schlegel, struck me 
immediately on beholding the pair of the former now living in 
the Zoological Gardens; but the voice is very different—that of 
H. indus being a peculiar sort of bleat, quite unlike the shrill 
cries of most Falconidee and the barking notes of others. H. 
sphenurus, Gould, bears a similar affinity to Blagrus leucogastei\ 
S 
Jsyfr 
