96 Mr. J. H. Gurney's Notes on 



cimens wliich have come under my notice are Captain Pin- 

 wilPs rufous-breasted bird from Bengal, and Col. Cobbe's 

 small specimen from Murshedabad, both of which are pre- 

 served in the British Museum. Two Madras specimens, which 

 I also examined in the British Museum, are tmfortunately 

 in immature dress, and therefore unavailable for the present 

 comparison. 



The entirely black chin seems to be a peculiarity of the 

 largest form of Spilornis, to which perhaps the apjDellation of 

 undulatus should be limited ; in smaller specimens the black 

 on this portion of the plumage is either more or less tinged 

 with grey, or is replaced by slate-colour or by brown*, but, I 

 think, most frequently by the former. 



It may be convenient here to allude to the curious fact that 

 the nestling of S. undulatus appears to resemble the adult 

 bird much more closely than it does the immature bird in the 

 second plumage. Such is certainly the case with a nestling 

 from Nepal, preserved in the British Museum, and briefly 

 described at p. 287 of Mr. JSharpe's volume; and a similar 

 phenomenon also occurs in another species of this genus, 

 S. bido of Java, as may be seen on reference to the repre- 

 sentation of a Javan nestling given by Professor Schlegel in 

 his ' Valk-Vogels,' pi. 22. fig. 3. 



Specimens of Spilornis from Central and Southern India 

 are so much scarcer in this country than those from Northern 

 India, that I have not seen a sufficient number of such ex- 

 amples to be able to form a satisfactory opinion as to the 

 species to which they should be assigned ; but I think it may 

 be useful to transcribe the following observations from p. 42 of 

 Mr, Hume's volume on the Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, 

 published in 1873: — ''The Lesser Indian Harrier-Eagle, 

 which I have as yet received only from EUore, Raipoor, Sum- 

 bulpoor, and Dacca, and intermediate localities, differs per- 

 ceptibly fron S. cheela of Upper India : the wings of the latter 

 vary in the males from 18"5 to nearly 20 inches, and in the 



* The cliiu is brown in two of the adults of S. rutherfordi from Hainan ; 

 I have no memoranduiu of its colovir in the remaining specimens from that 

 locahtv. 



