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



From Labrador, iu Norwich Museum .... 



From Scotland, measured by Macgillivray * 



From Scotland, in the Norwich Museum. . 



From Lapland, iu the Norwich Museum . . 



From south of France, measured by Mr. 



Humet 27-63 4-38 



From Algeria, in the collection of Mr. J. 



H. Gurney, Jun 2.5-2 4-0 



From Greece, in Norwich Museum 25-6 3-9 



From the Himalayas, in the Norwich Mu- 

 seum ^ 27-8 4-0 



From Hazara district of the Punjab, pre- 

 sented by Captain Unwin to the British 

 Museum, and measured by Mi-. Sharpe . . 27-9 4-0 



Messrs. Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway, in their work on the 

 land-birds of North America, from which I have quoted 

 some of the measurements just given, state that the American 

 Golden Eagle, as compared with that of the Old World, " is 

 darker in all its shades of colour, the difference being most 

 marked in the young plumage, which, in var. chrysa'etus, has 

 the tarsal-feathers nearly white, and in var. canadensis light 

 brown, the brown of other portions being also considerably 

 darker;" Mr. Sharpe, on the contrary, remarks "^I cannot 

 separate A. canadensis, the old birds of which appear to be 

 undistinguishable ; the young ones from America wear a pe- 

 culiarly light plumage on the head and neck.''^ 



To me it appears that the only difference between the 

 Golden Eagles of the Old and New Worlds which at all ap- 

 proximates to a constant distinction, is that in the colour of 

 the tarsi in young birds ; and even this does not seem to be 

 regulated by an invariable rule. The immature male from 

 Texas in the Norwich Museum, of which I have given the 

 measurements above, and the locality for which rests on the 

 testimony of the late Jules Verreaux, has the tarsi and the 



* Vide Macgillivray's 'British Birds,' vol. iii. p. 207. 

 t Vide Hume's 'Rough Notes,' p. 14L 



