Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections Vol 134 Classic Reprint

Author : Smithsonian Institution
Publisher : Forgotten Books
ISBN 13 : 9781332005680
Total Pages : 710 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (56 download)

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Download or read book Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. 3 (Classic Reprint) written by Smithsonian Institution and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2015-07-27 with total page 710 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. 3 Mirandolle's forest falcon, Micrastur mirandollei (Schlegel), is one of the least known of American hawks in spite of a very extensive range, extending from Costa Rica to Bolivia, and it has long been a rare bird in museum collections. So little material was available for study that in 1932 Griscom (Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., vol. 72, p.317) was moved to write of Wedel's eastern Panamanian collection that "a series of five specimens of this very rare Hawk from one locality is unprecedented..." Since that time additional examples have been taken, and in 1941 Griscom and Greenway (Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., vol. 81, p.418) separated the birds of the Caribbean coast of extreme eastern Panama under the name M. m. extimus, as they observed that two adults from there differed from a single Brazilian adult and from the description of the type from Surinam in having "much narrower and paler tailbands and in having the white underparts washed with richer buff. Judging by an immature bird and an intermediate specimen also from eastern Panama, the differences described above have nothing to do with immaturity..." Their comparative material was admittedly inadequate, but, fortunately, their action proves to be correct. Through the courtesy of the officials of the American Museum of Natural History, Carnegie Museum, Chicago Natural History Museum, Museum of Comparative Zoology, and the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, I have been able to add to the limited material stored in Washington, and have brought together by far the largest and most representative series of this species ever assembled, 26 specimens in all. These birds, young and adult of both sexes, clearly substantiate the validity of extimus, as the accompanying figures (pls. 1, 2) show, but also indicate that its range is much more extensive than hitherto thought. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.