Mr. T. Ayi'es on the Ornithology of Transvaal. 285 



XXIII. — Additional Notes on the Ornithology of Transvaal. 

 By Thomas Ayres. Communicated by John Henry 



GURNEY. 



[Continued from ' The Ibis ' for 1878, p. 411.] 



[As in previous papers, I have numbered the species not in- 

 cluded in Mr. Ayres^s former Transvaal lists consecutively 

 with those recorded in his preceding notes. — J. H. G.] 



The greater part of the birds mentioned in the following 

 notes were collected by me in the Magaliesbergen. The moun- 

 tains so called consist of many ranges, interspersed with broad 

 flat valleys miles in extent and width, in one of which is 

 situated the village of Rustenburg. 



308. Aquila verreauxt. Less. Verreaux^s Eagle. 



I found these Eagles amongst the most inaccessible preci- 

 pices of the Magaliesbergen ; here and there a pair had pos- 

 session of a precipitous range and were breeding. I saw the 

 nest on two occasions, and on one, by getting to a height 

 above, I could see the old bird on the nest ; but I did not 

 succeed in bagging a specimen. Once I was perched on the 

 top of a crag at the edge of a sheer precipice of three or four 

 hundred feet, when one of these Eagles passed over me from 

 behind, and I gave it such a dressing that it half fell, half 

 flew, about a quarter of a mile down the ravine, and at last 

 fell on the ground with a thump. I descended as quickly as 

 possible, making sure that I should get the bird ; but when I 

 came up to within about a hundred yards of where it had 

 fallen, it recovered and flew slowly round the bend of the 

 precipice, and I lost sight of it altogether. 



[Although Mr. Ayres did not succeed in obtaining a spe- 

 cimen of this Eagle, there is no doubt that he correctly iden- 

 tified it, as in its adult plumage it could not be mistaken by 

 so accurate an observer, differing, as it does, most conspicu- 

 ously from every other species of the genus Aquila. — J. H. G.] 



309. Asturinulamonogrammica (Temm.). One-strepked 

 Hawk. 



Male, Rustenburg, August 12, 1878. Irides lake-red; bill 

 dusky brown, basal part and cere light scarlet ; tarsi and feet 



