Notes on Mr, R.-B. Sharpe’s Catalogue of Accipitres. 467 
XLV.—Notes on a ‘Catalogue of the Accipitres in the 
British Museum,’ by R. Bowdler Sharpe (1874). By J. H. 
GURNEY. 
[Continued from p. 376. ] 
THe continent of Africa is the home of three Buteonine 
species (Buteo auguralis, Buteo augur, and Buteo jakal) which 
are included by Mr. Sharpe in the genus Buteo, but which 
appear to me to form a natural subgeneric group, to which 
the name of Pterolestes, proposed by the late Professor Sun- 
devall*, may be conveniently applied, 
The first two of these species are intertropical in their 
habitat, being natives of Abyssinia and of some of the adja- 
cent countries, and having also been obtained in West Africa 
within the Portuguese territory of Benguela. 
So far as I am aware, nothing is known as to the range of 
these two species in the countries which intervene between these 
far-distant localities, neither is it known whether either spe- 
cies occurs elsewhere in West Africa; but it may be desirable 
to record the circumstance of the Zoological Society of London 
having possessed, some years years since, two living examples 
of Pterolestes auguralis which were known to have been ob- 
tained in West Africa, though from what portion of the West- 
African coast was, I believe, never ascertained. Neither of 
these interesting birds lived long in confinement ; and, unfor- 
tunately, neither of them was preserved ; but the sternum of 
one, a male, was added to the collection in the Norwich Mu- 
seum, which also possesses an example of this Buzzard said 
to have been obtained in Nubia. As this species is very rare 
in collections, and as its dimensions are not given in Mr. 
Sharpe’s work, I may here mention the principal measure- 
ments of the specimen at Norwich; these are—wing from 
carpal joint 13°9 inches, tarsus 2°8, middle toe s. u, 1°5. 
Mr. Sharpe’s description of Pterolestes auguralis in his 
Catalogue is limited to a somewhat brief note supplied by 
Dr. Finsch; but he has subsequently published further parti- 
* Vide Addenda to Mr. Sharpe’s Catalogue, p. 458; also Sundevall ia 
(Efy.k. Vet. Akad. Forh. 1874, No. 2, p. 27. 
SER. III.— VOL. Vi. 2K 

