Mr. R. B. Sharpens Catalogue of Accipitres. 225 



rities treat as identical with A. rapax, but which I incline to 

 think is separable as a subspecies ; and A. vindhiana, which 

 perhaps may be most properly considered also a subspecies, 

 and which is connected with A. rapax by A. albicans, the latter 

 occupying a position curiously intermediate between A. rapax 

 and A. vindhiana, and thus forming one of those nicely ba- 

 lanced links which, though it is difficult to define, it is inac- 

 curate to ignore. 



Mr. Sharpe, in his epitome of the habitat of A. rapax, in- 

 cludes North-western India ; but the Eagle from that locality 

 which, in common with Canon Tristram^, I referred in 1869 

 to A. rapax, I now believe to be referable to A.fulvescens, 

 and to be specifically distinct both from A. rapax and from 

 A. vindhiana : to this Eagle I shall have occasion hereafter 

 more particularly to allude f. I believe it was this incorrect 

 identification which led Mr. Sharpe to quote North-western 

 India as a locality for A. rapax ; and I regret the error which 

 has thus obtained additional currency. 



The adult plumage of A. rapax is well represented in Tem- 

 minck^s 'Planches Coloriees,^ pi. 455 J, and in the upper figure 

 in the plate accompanying Lord Lilford's paper on the orni- 

 thology of Spain in ' The Ibis ' for 1865, pi. v. The imma- 

 ture plumage, but with a slight commencement of change on 

 the wing-coverts, is represented in the lower figure of the 

 same plate, and also in the figure of the " Tawny Eagle " 

 given in Dr. Breeds ' Birds of Europe ' § ; but neither of these 

 two figures appears to me sufficiently to indicate the somewhat 

 pale, but clear and decided, fulvous tint which characterizes 



* Vide Ibis for 1870, p. 290, footnote. 



t Mr. Sharpe gives A. fuhescens as a synonym of A, vindhiana, but, I 

 tbink, erroneously. 



J Temminck's plate sbows with great accuracy the character of the 

 particoloiu'ed feathers, which are remarkable on the wing-coverts of the 

 typical South- African A. rapax in its adult stage ; but his figure does not 

 sufficiently exhibit the similar markings which usually exist on the sca- 

 pulars and, to a less extent, on the back and sides of the neck and on the 

 upper breast. 



§ This figure is more accurately coloured in the second edition of Dr. 

 Bree's work than in the first. 



