123 



NOTE ON AN EXTINCT EAGLE. 



By C. W. De Vis, M.A., Cork. Mem. 



In company with Lithophaps ulnaris, Mr. Hurst found a femur 

 of an eagle which is irreconcilable with any genus known to the 

 w liter. But, in the "Proceedings of the Royal Society of Queens- 

 land" (Vol. vi., p. 161), a humerus of an eagle has been noticed by 

 him under the name of Uroaetus brachialis. The bird was there 

 referred provisionally to the extant genus as being in accord with 

 it so far as one extremity of a long bone could bear witness. It 

 has now become more than doubtful whether its association with 

 Uroaetus can be maintained. If we are not prepared to consider 

 it more probable that two species of eagles existed in practically 

 the same habitat than that the two bones in question belonged to 

 the same bird, and of this there is nothing valid to be shown to 

 the contrary, then the specific name brachialis must be placed 

 under a new genus, for the femur is quite distinct from those of 

 recent genera. For this probable genus the name Tapliaetus is 

 suggested in allusion to its appearance among the disentombed 

 remains of its contemporaries. 



Restoring the condylar region, which is wanting, this bone is 

 of the same length as that of the male sea-eagle, Haliastur leuco- 

 gaster, and 1\ mm. shorter than in a female wedge-tailed eagle, 

 U. audax. The femoral index 9*4 separates it alike from the 

 hawks and kites, with a much lower,^and from Baza which has 

 for a hawk the exceptionally high one of 10 -4 ; it likewise excludes 

 Haliaetus, which has the highest observed in the Falconidse, 1088, 

 but agrees fairly well with that of Uroaetus, Nisaetus, Haliastur, 

 and Pandion ; the last named genus is, however, put out of court 

 by the want of a pneumatic foramen adjacent to the trochanterian 

 ridge, an abnormality not presented by the fossil. From the other 



