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Show 2 ON THE BIRDS OF THE N.W. PROVINCES. [Jan. 15, The Secretary read the following letter from Mr. A. Anderson, F.Z.S., containing a correction of his last paper on the Raptorial Birds of the N.W. Provinces : - " I find that Mr. H u m e is right in his conjecture ] that the bird figured at pl. xxiii. P. Z. S. for 1876, as Falco babylonicus, is an abnormally coloured F. barbarus. " Mr. Gurney, who has kindly (at m y request) reexamined the bird, and compared it with specimens at the British Museum, has authorized m y publishing the following memorandum which he has drawn up on the subject. " Memorandum. " At the request of Mr. Anderson I inspected the Falcon, figured in the Society's ' Proceedings' for 1876, on pl. xxiii., as a specimen of Falco babylonicus, before that figure was drawn. The specimen struck me as smaller than any F. babylonicus I had previously seen, and as having rufous edgings to a larger proportion of the feathers of the mantle ; but it certainly did not occur to m e that it was any thing else than a small male of F. babylonicus, with the male of which species I was not, however, well acquainted, the specimens of that Falcon in the Norwich Museum being apparently, by their size, all females. "At p. 140 of'Stray Feathers' for 1877 this Falcon is referred to ; and the Editor suggests that it is too small for F. babylonicus, and ** might perhaps be F. barbarus.' " In consequence of this remark, I recently took the skin, at Mr. Anderson's request, to the British Museum for comparison, and found that it closely agrees with a Falcon from Nubia in that collection, both in size and in coloration ; this Nubian Falcon has been identified by Mr. Sharpe with F. barbarus, and is specimen a. in the enumeration given at p. 387 of vol. i. of his British-Museum Catalogue. "I believe that Mr. Sharpe's identification of this specimen is correct, and that both it and Mr. Anderson's Etawah Falcon are abnormally coloured specimens of F. barbarus. "J. H. GURNEY. "6th December, 1877. " In expressing my regret that the mistake in question should have occurred, I may remark that I believe the present is the first recorded occurrence of an adult F. barbarus within the limits to which I have restricted my researches, whereas the capture of F. babylonicus has been of comparative frequency ; the addition therefore of the former (F. barbarus) to m y plains Catalogue is of greater importance than if it had been the latter (F. babylonicus)." The following papers were read:- 1 Cf. ' Str. Feath.' for 1877, p. 140. |
