20 BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 



Sp. 5. HALIASTUR? SPHENURUS. 



Whistling Eagle. 



Milvus sphenurus, Vieill. 2nde edit, du Nouv. Diet. d^Hist. Nat., 



torn. XX. p. 564. 

 Haliaetits canorus, Vig. and Horsf. in Linn. Trans., vol. xv. p. 187. 

 Milvus sphenurus, Swains. Class, of Birds, vol. ii. p. 211. 

 Haliaetus {Ictinoaetus) canorus, Kaup, Isis, 1847, p. 277. 

 Moru and Wirwin, Aborigines of New South Wales. 

 En-na-jook, Aborigines of the Cobourg Peninsula. 

 Jan-doo, Aborigines of the lowland districts of Western Australia. 

 Whistling Hawk, Colonists of New South Wales. 

 Little Swamp-Eagle, Colonists of Western Australia. 



Haliastur sphenurus, Gould, Birds of Australia, foL, vol. i. pi. 5. 



This species has been observed in every portion of Aus- 

 tralia yet visited by Europeans. I did not meet with it in 

 Tasmania ; I am consequently led to believe that it rarely if 

 ever visits that island. In New South Wales it is quite as 

 numerous in summer as it is in winter ; not that it is to be 

 observed in the same locality at all times, the greater or less 

 abundance of its favourite food inducing it to wander from 

 one district to another, wherever the greatest supply is to be 

 procured. It never attacks animals of a large size ; but preys 

 upon carrion, small and feeble quadrupeds, birds, lizards, fish, 

 and the larvae of insects ; and while on the one hand it is the 

 pest of the poultry-yard, on the other no species of the 

 FalconidfB effects more good during the fearful visitations of 

 the caterpillar, a scourge of no infrequent occurrence in 

 Australia. So partial, in fact, is the Whistling Eagle to 

 this kind of food that the appearance of one is the certain 

 prelude to the appearance of the other. It is generally 

 to be seen in pairs, inhabiting alike the brtishes near the 

 coast and the forests of the interior of the country. It is in- 

 cessantly hovering over the harbours and sides of rivers and 

 lagoons, for any floating animal substance that may present 



