652 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXII. 



Unmistakable in its flight, as it is in the hand, at 

 least as a Spizseti if not as S. nepalensis. 



Very short rounded wings, long tail and the wings 

 held well back, as in the BoneUi's or the Golden. The 

 under surface, in an adult looks a beautiful silvery 

 white from beneath, closely dotted and barred. In 

 the breeding season, and more or less throughout the 

 rains, this bird is very noisy, and frequently gives 

 vent to a shrill but not unmusical whistle composed 

 of several short notes. 



The call is not unlike that of a monal pheasant and 

 is perfectly initiated by the Himalayan Jay [Garruliis 

 bispecularis). 



A great hunter in its wild state, it is most dis- 

 appointing in captivity, seldom aspiring to anything 

 bigger than a hare, and not in the least inclined 

 to pursue its quarry any fm'ther than a Sparrow 

 Hawk. 



For three years I experimented with different birds, 

 from the fledgling, taken from the nest, to an ancient 

 bird with orange eyes, but with very small results. 

 My total bag for the 3 years with some 7 birds was, 

 a few hares, an houbara which was the result of a 

 mistake, for the houbara anyway, as it evidently 

 did not realise it was being pursued and ran into a 

 bush where it was ignominiously pounced on by the 

 eagle, a village cat and, the most wonderful achieve- 

 ment of the lot a Tawny Eagle. The latter carried off 

 a Luggar falcon which I had thrown up as a decoy for 

 a Peregrine Falcon, with a ball of feathers covered 

 with nooses in its claws. My falconer who had the 

 Eagle on his wrist at the time, loosed him and much 

 to our surprise, the Hawk-Eagle made straight for 

 the Tawny and pulled him down before the latter had 

 gone 200 yards. This was about the longest chase 

 we had seen with these birds and was provided by an 

 eyass which I had taken out of the nest. 



Like most hawks, the Hawk-Eagles are gifted with 

 considerable speed for a very short distance, and in 

 its wild state the bird spends its time seated on a, 

 tree at the head of a nallah, where pheasants are 

 wont to feed, and when one gets directly beneath the 

 branch on which the eagle sits, the latter drops like a 

 bullet on to it before the pheasant knows what is 

 happening. The nest of this species, or rather the 

 environments of the nest, give a good clue to what 

 the youngster is fed on. Strangely enough the 

 Koklass pheasant, which is the speediest of all the 

 Phasianidse, appears to suffer most, along with doves 

 and flying-squirrels. This species appears to despise 

 crows as I have not seen the feather of a single crow 

 near any of the many nests I have examined. 



They usually build on I>eodar trees in dense jmigle, 

 but abnost invariably with a clearing or a glade close 



