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Show 1867.] DR. J. J. KAUP ON NISI AND ASTURES. 169 which our Museum is indebted to the kindness of the late General von Gagern, Herman von Rosenberg, Mr. Riedel, Mr. Cassalette, and to the Museum of Leyden. M y corrections of synonyms have thus been based upon actual examination, and do not depend upon mere descriptions of other naturalists. I have long ago given up so-called subgenera, and I have raised all subgenera established by me formerly to the dignity of genera, indicating the section or group by giving it the oldest and most usual name in the plural, according to the plan introduced by the late Prince Charles Lucien Bonaparte. I give an outline sketch of several heads and of a wing of each of the four Indian genera of the section Nisi or Accipitres of English ornithologists, and I hope that henceforth the distinctions which I make will be appreciated and not ignored, though the latter is by far the easier. If we compare the head and the wing of the typical form of the Nisi, viz. those of the genus Tachyspiza, the thought must occur to each careful ornithologist that this genus possesses more characteristic features than many of the newly created genera of other groups of the class of birds. The tooth of the upper mandible is round and hangs down low ; it is pressed to the front and separated from the tip of the beak only by a sharp incision, and it overlaps the entire front half of the lower mandible: this alone would justify us in separating T.soloensis from all other species of Nisi. To this characteristic mark of the genus must be added that the wing is longer and more pointed than that of the Nisi, and that the length of the point of the wing (77 m m . ) is only equal to eleven twenty-sixths of the length of the entire wing (182 mm.). Add to this that the third primary, and not the fourth, is the longest, and that only the first, second, and third are emarginated distinctly on tbe inner vane, and the fourth in a scarcely perceptible manner, whilst in others the fourth and fifth are distinctly emarginated ; moreover they have a proportionally short tarsus, and the toes with soles rather wider near their bases. If we knew its manner of life with the familiarity of a Naumann or a Brehm, we should find that T. soloensis flies better than all other Nisi, and that its food, especially when it has young, consists only of insects. W e should see, in fact, that Tachyspiza represents amongst the Nisi the Nauclerus, Hypotriorchis the Falcones, and Erythropus the Tinnunculi. It would, however, be a mistake to place this strongly characterized genus at the head or at the end of the Nisi, and to look upon the rest of the Nisi seu Accipitres as an inseparable whole, because these latter do not possess such a totality of distinguishing marks. If the long point of the wing, with its third primary the longest and the second a trifle shorter than the fifth, is a generic mark of the Tachyspiza, the relative proportions of the point of the wing to the entire length of the wing and the relative lengths of the primaries must also be |