240 Mr. BIyth's Commentanj 



making such a mistake), are decidedly A. virgatus^. In the 

 Report on Japanese Ornithology accompanying the narrative of 

 Commodore Perry's Expedition, it is stated of A. gularis that 

 " The young bird is darker above than represented in the figure 

 of the adult male in the plate in * Fauna Japonica,' and has the 

 transverse bars on the underparts much less regular and lighter- 

 coloured than in the figure of the female in the same plate/' 

 I have little doubt of there being some misapprehension re- 

 garding the alleged occurrence of Micronisus soloensis (" Nisus 

 minutus, Lesson," Pucheran, Rev. Zool. 1850, p. 200) on the 

 Coromandel coast, for I have never seen it even from the 

 Malayan peninsula. Professor Schlegel gives it from Java, 

 Celebes, the Philippines, and China. 



26. Aquila chrysaetus. 



The great Berkut or Bjurkut Eagle of Mongolia referred to is, 

 I suspect, a much larger and more powerful bird than A. chry- 

 saetus, to judge only from the feats credibly reported of it by 

 Atkinson t and others, even as Haliaetus pelagicus and the great 

 Tibetan Raven are considerably more powerful birds than H. 

 aibicilla and Corvus corax. I saw such an Eagle on board an 

 American vessel in Calcutta, wherein it had been brought from 

 California, and have seen no other that even approached it in 



* My original description of A. nisoides may here be quoted :—" Pre- 

 sumed female in mature plumage, differing only from that of A. nisus in 

 its much inferior size, being smaller than the male of A. nisus, and in having 

 the throat streakless white, excepting a narrow median dark line ; the usual 

 lateral lines occur, but not conspicuously, which are observable in various 

 species of Hawks, Eagle-Hawks, &c. Length of wing 7i in. ; of tail 5| in. ; 

 tarsi If in. ; middle toe and claw li in." I have seen three nearly similar 

 specimens of this Sparrow-Hawk, all received from Malacca, and it is much 

 more closely akin to A. nisus than is A. virgatus. No trace of ferruginous 

 colouring underneath was observable in any one of the three. They were 

 of the size of the male A. nisus, or somewhat smaller, with the plumage of 

 a non-rufous adult female of that species, combined with the trilineated 

 throat of A. virgatus, the affinity, I repeat, being much closer to the former 

 species than to the latter. When writing the foregoing remarks I had not 

 the 'Fauna Japonica' at hand. Now that it is before me, I recognize in. 

 the fio'ure of the female A. gularis an exact representation of my A. nisoides. 



t Travels in Oriental and Western Siberia, p. 493. Pennant (Arctic 

 Zoology, ii. p. 195) mentions Eagles being trained by the Tartars to attack: 

 Wolves ! 



