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



the mantle and under surface of A. rapax in immature plu- 

 mage, and which was well described by the late Sir A. Smith 

 in the following sentence : — " The young are of tawny chest- 

 nut colour, and without the brown variations observed in 

 the old ^^•^. 



Aquila rapax appears to be the commonest Eagle in the 

 colony of the Cape of Good Hope ; and thence it has been 

 ascertained to extend its range in a north-easterly direc- 

 tion to the Republic of Transvaal, and in a north-westerly to 

 the Mossamedes district in Benguelaf. 



On the western side of the African continent, north of the 

 equator, we meet with A. rapax at Senegal; and the British 

 Museum possesses a typical example in immature plumage 

 from that locality. Other specimens from Senegal, which are 

 preserved in the Museum at Paris, are said to be identical 

 with South-African examples J ; but Professor Sclilegel, in 

 the ' Museum des Pays-Bas,^ vol. i. Aquilce, p. 5, has the fol- 

 lowing footnote : — " Les individus originaires du Senegal, que 

 j'ai pu examiner, offrent en general des teintes un peu plus 

 ternes que ceux de I'Afrique australe ; " the same author, 

 however, in his supplementary volume, Accipitres, p. 116, 

 mentions a specimen of this Eagle, acquired by the Leyden 

 Museum subsequently to the issue of his first volume, as 

 " femelle aux teintes fauves, Senegal. ^^ 



Proceeding northwards, it would appear that A. rapax oc- 

 curs in the neighbourhood of Mogador, as I understand from 

 Lord Lilford that the two specimens figured by him in ' The 

 Ibis ' for 1865 were both said to have come thence. 



What range A. rapax may have in those parts of North 

 Africa which border on the Mediterranean I am unable to 

 say, having only examined two specimens of Eagles of this 

 group from there, both of which appear to me to be more 

 nearly allied to A. albicans than to A. rapax, on which ac- 

 count I defer their consideration for the present. 



* Vide ' Gardens and Menagerie of the Zoological Society Delineated,' 

 vol. ii. p. 292. 



t Vide second edition of Layard's ' Birds of Africa,' p. 35. 

 \ FjV/e Hartlaub's 'Ornitbologie West- Africa's,' p. 13. 



