SPOTTED KAdI.E AT KLMSTEAD AND I.KIGH. 219 



weak from want of food, and was very light. A gale from the N.E. 

 had been blowing for two days, so 1 imagine that the bird had been 

 carried out of its course. I find that it had been seen two or three 

 days before I shot it." — W. Cole. 



[We, of course, give the names of the species on the authority of 

 Dr. Laver and Mr. King. The Spotted Eagle appears to be one of 

 our rarest birds, only six examples having been previously recorded 

 in (ireat Britain and Ireland {viz., two near Youghal in 1845 ; two 

 in Cornwall in 1861 ; one in Lancashire in 1874; and one, in 1885, 

 in Northumberland). Its distribution is thus summarised by Mr. 

 Saunders : — " It is probable that the specific name generally 

 employed was originally intended for the small form which breeds 

 in the forests of Northern Germany, and becomes numerous in 

 Pomerania and the Baltic provinces of Russia ; though rare on 

 the eastern side of the Gulf of Bothnia, and only a straggler to 

 Sweden and Lapland. Southward this can be traced through 

 Poland and the marshy woods to the west of the Dnieper down 

 to Bessarabia, as w^ell as to the Caucasus. A larger form, which 

 slightly intrudes on this area, occupies the forest region to the 

 eastward and southward as far as the steppes ; beyond which it 

 extends across Turkestan and Central Asia to Northern China, 

 and to some parts of India, Persia, and Asia Minor. It nests 

 in Turkey, the districts watered by and south of the Danube, and 

 suitable localities in Italy and the islands of the Mediterranean ; 

 also, sparingly, in north Africa. In the south of Spain it is not 

 common ; but I frequently saw and heard it in the Pyrenees. 

 In France and Belgium it is rare, except on the wooded south- 

 eastern frontier towards Switzerland and Luxemburg. In winter 

 both races migrate entirely from their northern, and partially from 

 their southern, haunts in Europe, numbers ascending the Nile 

 valley to Abyssinia." The late severe storms were doubtless the 

 cause of these distinguished visitors' presence in Essex. Possibly they 

 were blown from their course during migration. It is stated that the 

 Elmstead specimen is a young male, in good plumage, the wings 

 extending nearly six feet from point to point. Its appetite is very 

 keen, it having disposed in three days of a large barn-door fowl, a 

 rabbit, and the entire pluck of a sheep ! If Dr. Laver is correct 

 in referring the specimen to the small form, it is probably quite 

 new to the British fauna, as Mr. J. H. (kirney stated that all the 

 I'riiish examples he had seen were referable to the larger variety, 

 which, he says, is the A. clnnga of Pallas. The Elmstead specimen 

 forms the subject of a large engraving in the "Daily Graphic " of 

 November i8th. — Ed.] 



