Forehead and space over the eye buffy white, each feather tipped and marked down the shaft with black; crown of the head, back and sides of the neck, throat, shoulders, both above and beneath, and the under surface generally reddish orange; the feathers on the crown and the back of the head, like those of the forehead, marked longitudinally and tipped with black, but in no part are these markings so widely spread as on the chest, whence they suddenly diminish, and are altogether lost on the abdomen, the uniformity of which, particularly on the flanks, is broken by obscure transverse bands of a lighter colour; upper part of the back and scapularies deep blackish brown; tips of the primaries on the upper surface dark brown, obscurely banded with black; internal web of the basal portion of the primaries, together with the stem and under surface generally, greyish white; secondaries dark brown banded with black, the remainder of the wing light brown, the edges of the feathers being still lighter; rump and upper tail-coverts white, with transverse bands of brown and buff; tail brownish grey, and nearly square in form, all the feathers, except the two outer on each side, marked with about four obscure narrow bands of black, the whole tipped with black; irides very pale yellow, freckled with light rufous; cere, base of the bill and feet greyish white; culmen and tip of the bill and claws black. The female has the same character of markings as the male, but is readily distinguished by her great superiority in size. The figure is that of a male two-thirds of the natural size. [Illustration: ELANUS AXILLARIS. _J. Gould and H. C. Richter, del^t._ _C. Hullmandel Imp._ ] ELANUS AXILLARIS. Black-shouldered Kite. _Falco axillaris_, Lath. Ind. Orn., Supp., vol. ii. p. 42.—Shaw Gen. Zool., vol. vii. p. 173.—Vieill. 2nde Edit. du Nouv. Diet. d’Hist. Nat., tom. iv. p. 453. _Circus axillaris_, Vieill. Ency. Méth., Part. III. p. 1212. _Elanus notatus_, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc., Part V. p. 141; and in Syn. Birds of Australia, Part IV. A more careful comparison of the birds from various parts of the world, which have hitherto been classed under the old specific name of _Falco (Elanus) melanopterus_, has shown that, instead of their being all identical, each quarter of the globe is inhabited by its own peculiar species; and that although they all bear a general resemblance to each other, they each possess well-defined characters, by which they may be readily distinguished: in their habits, as might be supposed, they are as closely allied as in general appearance.