TRE BIRDS 01 PREY Of THE PUNJAB. 



1019 



Measurements. 



Habits, etc. 



" Length of a Himalayan female 24*5 ; tail 9*2 ; 

 wing 17'5 : tarsus 3"1 ; bill from gape 1*7. Males 

 very little smaller. Specimens from Assam and 

 Cachar have generally a wing of 16 to 17 inches; 

 Malay birds are much smaller." (Blanford.) The 

 following are the dimensions of a very fin,e Hima- 

 layan female procured by me on 7th July 1919 in 

 Kulu : — Length 25; wing IS'S ; tail 9'5 ; tarsus 3*2. 



This Fishing-Eagle is found throughout the Pro- 

 vince from Kashmir to the Jumna Kiver, in suitable 

 localities. Large streams with wooded banks are 

 his favourite haunts, but I have met him on open 

 stretches of river with hardly ten trees within a mile 

 of country. 



Like his cousin, Pallas's Fishing-Eagle, he adver- 

 tises the whereabouts of his nest to all and sundry, 

 by making an appalling noise in its immediate vici- 

 nity. If one happens to be sitting in the nest, it 

 welcomes the advent ef the other by a succession of 

 querulous shouts and cackles, not unlike a very 

 small child crying. In the distance the sound is 

 distinctly plaintive and childlike but at close quar- 

 ters it is querulous and unpleasant. The Fishing- 

 Eagles are not given to soaring and a hurried rush, 

 with fast beating wings, up and down a stream, from 

 one lot of trees to another seems the limit of his 

 movements, at any one time. The species is unmis- 

 takable at any stage by the curious light, if not 

 white, colouring fore and aft and the deep brown in 

 between. 



The Fishing-Eagle will sit for hours on a branch 

 overlooking a pool in a stream and drop like a stone 

 on to any tish that has the temerity to show itself 

 near the surface. 



I have never seen this species disappear under 

 water, like an Osprey, after fish, and nor have 

 I ever seen it strike the water otherwise than legs 

 first, but on the other hand 1 have seen it almost 

 dragged under by, presumably, a fish too big for the 

 Eagle to bring to the surface. The Eagle struck 

 the water with terrific force, its legs going in almost 

 up to the body, and there it remained for a few 

 seconds, its wings working hard to rise. Finally, 

 when it did rise, its claws were empty, but both, 

 body and wings, had been repeatedly wetted, 

 without in any way interfering with its flight when 

 it did eventually give up the struggle. 



This species is fairly common all over the Kulu 

 Valley, and they must do a good deal of damage 

 among the trout, but on the other hand, before one 

 can recommend its extermination, it is as well to 

 thoroughly investigate its life history and see what 

 it can show on the other side of its Ledger in the 

 way of keeping down other enemies of the. trout, 

 which, but for the Eagle, might prove to be a bigger 

 danger to the fisheries than the Eagle. 



