412 Dr. Heuglin on new or little- known Birds 



was half- withered and scarcely 15 feet high^ above a narrow 

 fissure in the rocks. This specimen was not shy at all, and per- 

 mitted my approaching it to a distance of 40 yards. The spe- 

 cimens which were brought killed to me, had been also found 

 in similar localities, namely along torrents surrounded by groves 

 of trees, and never in the open spaces which form the favourite 

 resorts of C. gaUicus and C. pectoralis. If I recollect right, the 

 contents of the stomach of the one killed by myself were entirely 

 composed of frogs. 



The range of C. zonurus, on the sources of the Nile, does not 

 appear to extend northwards beyond 10° North lat. I have 

 never received it from Abyssinia, or Kordofan, or from the northern 

 parts of Sennaar. 



The figure of this bird given by J. von Miiller, under the 

 name Circaeius cinerascen^, is very incorrect : the head is much 

 too small; the bristles round the base of the bill are omitted; the 

 general coloration is too light ; the lower covers of the tail are 

 grey instead of white ; the feet are too slender and shielded, 

 instead of reticulated ; the nails are too large ; the transverse 

 bands on the lower side of the tail much too light, and those on 

 the wings much too dark, compared with the ground-colour ! 



I take this opportunity of adding remarks on the other species 

 of Circaetus living in Africa. 



1. Circaetus gallicus, Gm. {A. brachydactyla, Meyer and 

 Wolf.) 



The European species of Circaetus makes its appearance in 

 Egypt in pairs or small flocks in the month of September, and 

 goes upwards along the banks of the Nile to the prairies of 

 Kordofan, Sennaar, &c., where it stays during the winter, re- 

 turning through Egypt in February and March. It is not un- 

 frequently seen during the autumn sitting on low hills and sand- 

 banks, sometimes in shallow water, hunting for reptiles, which 

 are driven out of their holes and retreats by the increasing 

 waters of the river. In the prairies, this species is found some- 

 times at a very great distance from water ; and single specimens 

 appear to stay all the summer within the tropics, as I infer from 

 an individual which I killed in Eastern Sennaar in the middle of 



