Mr. J. IL Gurney on Aquila barthelemyi. 339 



less state in great numbers, and die on shore. They are seen at 

 sea in the Mozambique and Indian Ocean, and are very abundant 

 off the banks near the Seychelles. When driven ashore, they are 

 in so emaciated a state as to dry up vi^ithout undergoing putre- 

 faction. 



XXVI. — Note on Aquila barthelemyi, Jaubert. 

 By J. H. Gurney. 



In the spring of 1857, I was informed by my friend M. Jules 

 Verreaux that he could procure me two living specimens of 

 Aquila barthelemyi, which had been recently taken from the nest 

 on the Sainte Victoire Mountains, in the south of France — the 

 locality especially designated as the head-quarters of this Eagle 

 by Messrs. Jaubert and Barthelemy-Lapommeraye, in their work 

 entitled ' Richesses Ornithologiques du Midi de la France,' 



Having requested M. Verreaux to obtain for me these young 

 Eagles, they were accordingly forwarded soon afterwards ; but 

 on their arrival I could perceive nothing to distinguish them 

 from ordinary Golden Eagles of the same age. One of them 

 had been injured in the wing ; and as this accident much de- 

 tracted from its beauty as a living specimen, in February 1858 

 I had it killed, mounted, and placed in the Norwich Museum. 

 This bird, on dissection, proved a male, and agreed both in size 

 and colour with male birds of the ordinary Aquila chrysaetos of 

 the same age, being entirely destitute of the white scapular spots 

 by which Aquila barthelemyi is ordinarily distinguished. The 

 surviving bird (which I believe to be also a male) has remained 

 alive in my possession to the present time; but I could never 

 detect anything in its plumage different from that of the Golden 

 Eagle until April of the present year, when, on visiting the bird 

 after some months' absence from home, I found, to my pleasure 

 and surprise, that the first scapular feathers on both sides of the 

 body had become snow-white, exactly as depicted in the plate 

 given in Messrs. Jaubert and Barthelemy-Lapommeraye's work, 

 and closely resembling (allowance being made for the difference 

 of size in the two birds) the white scapular spots which occur in 

 most specimens of Aquila pennata. 



