OCR Text |
Show 338 MR. SHARPE O N T H E ACCIPITRES OF AUSTRALIA. [Apr. 20, shaft-lines, the vent-feathers slightly washed with bright rufous, under tail-coverts mottled with ashy frecklings; under wing-coverts bright rufous, with broad central arrow-head markings of black, the lower series grey, barred with blackish brown, exactly resembling the inner lining of the quills. Mr. Gurney has pointed out to me an error that I made in adopting this species as the type of Kaup's genus Urospizias, whereas Kaup intended his type of that genus to be the Astur radiatus of Temminck (nee Lath.)=A. approximans. I overlooked this by some mistake ; and as this Red Harrier Buzzard is really generically distinct, I adopt the name of Erythrotriorchis, with which Mr. Gurney proposes to supplant Urospizias of m y • Catalogue.' LOPHOICTINIA ISURA (Gould) : Sharpe, Cat. p. 327. The receipt of a specimen in Mr. White's collection shows that the bird supposed by m e to be the young (p. 327) is not really immature ; and I subjoin a description of a very young bird, which I now exhibit. Above purplish black, broadly tipped with tawny rufous, shading off into buff on the extreme margin; lower back and rump pale brown, broadly tipped with tawny rufous, especially on the under tail-coverts, which are barred and mottled with darker brown, being whitish at the base and for the greater part of the outer web ; tail slaty grey, tipped with buffy white and barred with six blackish bands, the subterminal one broader ; upper wing-coverts purplish brown, broadly barred with tawny rufous, particularly broad on the outermost of the least series, which are mesially streaked with blackish brown, the greater coverts whitish near the base and barred with the same on the inner web; primary coverts uniform purplish brown, tipped with tawny; quills purplish black, tipped like the coverts, the primaries inclining to slaty grey and barred with blackish on the inner webs; entire head, neck, and underparts bright tawny, the feathers centred with black streaks, narrower on the throat and chest, and disappearing on the abdomen and flanks; frontal feathers and chin indistinctly whitish; ear-coverts more thickly streaked with blackish, giving them a dingy appearance; upper wing-coverts coloured like the breast, the lowest series ashy black, inclining to greyish white at base, and resembling the inner lining of the quills. NISAETUS MORPHNOIDES (Gould): Sharpe, Cat. i. p. 254. The bird figured by Mr. Gould and described by him as adult is most probably the young. At all events it is of the same plumage as the brown specimens of the Booted Eagle of Europe, which are generally shown to be immature. Mr. White has now sent me the adult bird, a skin of which he has very kindly presented to the Museum ; and he tells me that the brown birds are far rarer than the white-breasted ones. As might be expected, the present specimen much resembles an ordinary white-breasted N. pennatus ; but it has the unfailing character of the barred quill-lining by which I first |