286 Mr. D. Seth-Smith on the 



the British Ornithologists' Club, held on December 16th, 

 1896, by Mr. Ogilvie-Grant, who assigned it to a new genus, 

 which he considered to be most closely allied to Harpy- 

 halia'etus of South America. The type-specimen was obtained 

 by John Whitehead in the forests of Samar, during his 

 successful expedition to the Philippines of 1894-7. 



During that naturalist's first expedition to the island in 

 1895 he failed to meet with this species, though he made a 

 fine collection of other birds, which were destroyed by fire on 

 board ship in Singapore. This great misfortune resulted in 

 his returning to Samar, where his loss was fully compensated 

 by the discovery of the extraordinary Pithecophaga in the 

 high forests which still remain on the Pacific Coast of that 

 island. " In these lofty forests," writes Mr. Whitehead, 

 " the Great Philippine Eagle has made his home, with no 

 enemies to trouble him. He is well known to the natives 

 as a robber of their poultry and small pigs, but chiefly 

 as a destroyer of monkeys, which are the only animals 

 sufficiently abundant in the forests to support such a large 

 bird." 



Mr. Whitehead had noticed these large Eagles flying 

 along the edge of the forest, but had failed to secure a 

 specimen, until one morning his servant managed to put a 

 single buckshot from an old muzzle-loading gun into the 

 neck of a specimen as it settled on the top of a high tree. 

 Mr. Whitehead estimated the weight of this specimen at 

 between 15 and 20 lbs. At the collector's request the species 

 was named after his father, Mr. Jeffery Whitehead, by whose 

 generosity the expedition had been carried out. 



The United States National Museum received a specimen 

 of Pithecophaga from Mr. Fletcher L. Keller, a hemp-planter 

 of Davao, Mindanao, which was the second example to reach 

 America, and the first authentic record of its occurrence in 

 Mindanao. This gentleman saw one in a collection of birds 

 in the Public Library of Minneapolis, U.S.A., and one in 

 Manila, but kuew of only five preserved specimens altogether. 

 Mr. Keller's specimen, a male, was taken near Davao on 



