241 
Mr. R. B. Sharpe’s Catalogue of Aecipitres. 
surface of the head,, but without any intermixture of white; 
the lower scapulars have, however, concealed broad transverse 
bars of greyish-brown; similar concealed bars are on the 
inner webs of the quill-feathers of the wing, the remaining 
parts of these quills being blackish-brown, with very narrow 
paler tips; these transverse bars are paler and more con¬ 
spicuous on the under than on the upper surface of the 
primaries; the upper tail-coverts (except the central feathers) 
are transversely barred with faint markings of a paler brown 
than the remainder of that portion of the plumage; the upper 
surface of the tail is dark grey, crossed by seven bars of 
greyish black, of which the lowest is subterminal, with a very 
narrow pale edging to the rectrices below it. The under 
surface is similar, but paler, and especially so as regards 
the grey interspaces between the dark bars. The upper 
portion of the breast is like the back, but with very slight 
rufous edgings to some of the feathers; the lower part of 
the breast resembles the upper, but with broader rufous 
edgings to the feathers; and this is also the case with the 
abdomen, flanks, and thighs, the rufous edgings being 
broadest and most conspicuous on the tibia! feathers; the 
under tail-coverts are ochraceous white, transversely but not 
closely barred with rufous-brown, the lowest of these bars 
having somewhat the appearance of a line of sagittate spots 
rather than of an unbroken bar; the bastard wing is dark 
grey, the wing-lining ochraceous white, with dark rufous- 
brown shaft-marks on each feather, many of which are in the 
form of sagittate spots. 
I may add that melanistic examples of B . calurus have 
been occasionally mistaken for specimens of B. harlani , from 
which, I believe, they may always be distinguished by their 
rufous tails, as that portion of the plumage seems, in the case 
of B. calurus, to be exempt from a tendency to melanistic 
coloration. 
There remains but one other North-American species of 
the genus Buteo to be noticed, B. cooperi, which Mr. Sharpe 
merely refers to in a footnote at page 172 of his work. The 
type specimen of this Buzzard was shot in 1855 in Santa-Clara 
