Notes on Mr. R. B. Sharpe's Catalogue of Accipitres. 451 



was made in the usual situation, but, I regret to say, came to 

 nothing, although the parents sat alternately on it for at 

 least ten or twelve days. A second nest was subsequently 

 formed, and two more eggs laid ; but, unfortunately, no results 

 were obtained. 



The egg of Ibis (Bthiopica, which is now figured (PI. XII.) 

 from the specimen laid this year before the birds left 

 the aviary, measures about 2'6 inches by 1'9. It is white, 

 slightly speckled and scratched with reddish brown, and 

 seems to me to resemble, as it naturally would, the egg of 

 the Spoonbill more than that of any other bird with which I 

 am acquainted. 



Mr. E. C. Taylor {antea, p. 372) has lately recorded the 

 occurrence of the Sacred Ibis in Lower Egypt, concerning 

 which Captain Shelley^ seems to have been rather too incre- 

 dulous, as has already been remarked by Heuglin (/. s. c.) . 

 Heuglin himself saw an example shot near Quata, in the 

 Delta, in 1864, by the hunting-party of Prince Halim Pasha ; 

 and there are other records of the same kind, although the 

 bird is, no doubt, only an occasional straggler so far north. 



XXXVII. — Notes on a 'Catalogue of the Accipitres in the 

 British Museum,' by R. Bowdler Sharpe (1874). By J. H, 



GURNEY. 



[Continued from p. 356.] 



The Sea-Eagles, which I propose next to consider, form a 

 group nearly allied to the typical Aquilinse, but chiefly dis- 

 tinguished from them by having the tarsus bare of feathers, 

 except for a short distance below its upper extremity, and 

 also by their more aquatic habits, both as regards the loca- 

 lities which they frequent, and the food on which they, for 

 the most part, subsist. 



The group of Sea-Eagles may appropriately bear the title 

 of Haliaetinae, which was used by the late Mr. Blyth, though 

 in a somewhat wider sense than that in which I adopt it, at 



♦ ' Birds of Egypt,' p. 261. 



