66 
Mr. J. H. Gurnets Notes on 
where a place had been assigned to it in the most recent syste¬ 
matic works of Gould, Schlegel, and G. It. Gray. 
The second genus in Mr. Sharpens arrangement of the Bu- 
teoninse bears the title of Heterospizias , under which name 
Mr. Sharpe has separated, and, I think, legitimately, Falco 
meridionalis of Latham, a species which has been referred to 
no less than ten different genera by previous ornithological 
authors. 
Mr. Sharpe places the genus Tachytriorchis third on his 
list; but it will be convenient for my purpose to postpone its 
consideration till after I have referred to the first species enu¬ 
merated by him as belonging to the genus Buteo , the so-called 
“ Chilian Sea-Eagle 
I quite agree with Mr. Sharpe in placing this fine species 
in the Buteonine subfamily; but I think it sufficiently distinct 
to make it advisible to retain for it the subgeneric name of 
Geranoaetus proposed by Kaup, and adopted by some subse¬ 
quent authorities, amongst the most recent of whom are 
Messrs. Sclater and Salvin, in their f Nomenclator Avium 
Neotropicalium/ p. 119. 
According to D^Orbigny (‘ Voyage dans TAmerique Meri- 
dionale/ Oiseaux, p. 77), this species does not attain its full 
plumage till it has reached its fourth year ; and its interme¬ 
diate stages are described in considerable detail by that careful 
observer; but neither he nor Mr. Sharpe mentions a phase 
of plumage which occurs when the bird has nearly completed 
its progress towards maturity t, and which I will therefore de¬ 
scribe from a specimen in the Norwich Museum, a female, 
obtained in Ecuador :—Upper surface as in Mr. Sharpens de- 
* Vide 1 Gardens and Menagerie of the Zoological Society,’ 1831, p. 85, 
also 1 Revised List of the Yertehrated Animals in the Gardens of the 
Zoological Society,’ 1872, p. 214. 
t This phase does not occur in the case of every individual, and perhaps 
only in the females—as a young male from Chili, in the Norwich Museum, 
is evidently changing from the plumage designated by Mr. Sharpe as 
“ young ” into that which he defines as “ adult,” without passing through 
the intermediate stage to which I have here alluded. In the normal adult 
female the slaty black on the chest extends about an inch lower than it 
does in the adult male. 
