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



their striated plumage in confinement, and to which I have 

 ah-eady alluded. 



Before leaving the subject of the Antwerp Eagle, I may 

 mention that some slight changes which occurred in its plu- 

 mage between 1868 and 1874 are detailed by Professor Van- 

 den-Nest in a letter which is printed at page 91 of the first 

 volume of the second edition of Dr. Bree's work. 



As regards the more eastern range of A. rapax, I have no 

 information beyond the fact of its inhabiting Palestine and 

 breeding there, which is recorded by Canon Tristram in ' The 

 Ibis^ for 1865, p. 252; I have never had the opportunity of 

 personally examining an Asiatic specimen. 



I will now refer to such facts as I have been able to collect 

 relative to the Eagle inhabiting Abyssinia and the adjacent 

 countries, for which Riippell proposed the specific name of 

 albicans, though he subsequently abandoned this for the older 

 appellation of rapax*, under which latter designation it is 

 also referred to by two eminent subsequent explorers of Abys- 

 sinia, Blanford and Von Heuglin. 



These Abyssinian Eagles do not differ from the typical A. 

 rapax of South Africa in form or measurements f; and the 

 question to be considered has therefore reference to colora- 

 tion and markings only. On the former of these heads Mr. 

 Blanford observes, " the plumage varies from umber-brown 

 to rufous, the latter colour prevailing in adult birds, especially 

 on the head and upper part of the back ; old birds are whitish 

 [A. albicans, Riipp.).^' 



With regard to the last of these observations I may men- 

 tion that the specimens which I have examined lead me to 

 believe that the colour, or rather lack of colour, described by 

 Mr. Blanford as " whitish,'^ is less due to the age of the bird 

 than to the age of the feathers, which frequently become much 



* Vide 'Neue Wirbeltliiere/ p. 34, and ' Systematisclie Uebersicht,' 

 p. 10. 



t Dr. A. Brehm, who, in his interesting Notes on the Bii-ds of the Bogos 

 Country, recognizes A. albicans as distinct fi'om A. rapax, considers the 

 former to be the larger bird of the two {vide 'Naumannia/ 1855, p. 15); 

 but I do not find that such is the case on an average of the specimens 

 which I have examined. 



