









230 Mr. J. H. Gurney’s Notes on 
are intermediate in appearance between those of the Golden 
Plover and Lapwing. The very dark variety is one of the 
set of four found on dark peaty ground, above alluded to; and 
the light-coloured variety is one of the set found at the base 
of the ridge of hummocks, where a quantity of dead and 
bleached Sphagnum covered the edges of the flat peat-bog. 
The former set of eggs was the only one found actually laid 
on peaty dark soil, and the latter the only set found at the 
base of the ridge amongst the bleached Sphagnum ; and they 
present the extremes in darkness and lightness of ground- 
colour. In a series of sixteen eggs, measured by Harvie 
Brown, they are found to vary in size from 274, by 114 of 
an inch to 13% by 114 of an inch, agreeing with measure- 
ments of the eggs brought by Herr A. von Middendorff from 
Siberia (Dresser, ‘ Birds of Europe,’ temporary vol. i.). 
[To be continued. | 
_XXI.—Notes on a ‘ Catalogue of the Accipitres in the British 
Museum,’ by R. Bowdler Sharpe (1874). By J. H. Gurney. 
[Continued from p. 76. ] 
Havine concluded my last paper by a reference to the 
Buzzard of the Galapagos Islands, it may be convenient that 
I should next advert to another insular species, a native of a 
still more isolated habitat in the Pacific Ocean—Buteo soli- 
tarius of Peale. 
The type specimen, which is preserved in the Academy of 
Natural Sciences at Philadelphia, and which, I believe, is still 
unique, was obtained near Karakaloa Bay in the island of 
Hawaii, the largest of the Sandwich group, and was described 
by Peale under the above name in the first edition of 
‘The Zoology of the United-States Exploring Expedition,’ 
published in 1848; but in the later edition of that work, 
published in 1858, and edited by Cassin, this species was 
removed by that ornithologist to the genus Pandion, with the 
following remark :—‘ This bird is strictly a member of a 
subgenus of the generic group Pandion, designated Polioaétus 
by Dr. Kaup” (vide op. cit. p. 98). 


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