Mr. R. B. Sharpe's Catalogue of Accipitres. 419 



curved inner and hinder claws, culmen comparatively shorter 

 and more rounded, also, in many species, an occipital crest, 

 and^ in many, yellow irides. 



In the large majority of Hawk-Eagles the tarsi are fea- 

 thered ; but in a few instances, to which I shall have occasion 

 subsequently to refer, they are bare of feathers and are 

 scutellated. 



Those of the Hawk-Eagles which differ least from the 

 typical Aquilinse are comprised in the genus Nisaetus ; but 

 this genus is composed of three very distinguishable minor 

 sections, of which I should arrange as the first the Dwarf 

 Eagles N. pennatus and N. morphnoides — two species which 

 form the subgenus Hieraetus of Kaup, and which, perhaps, 

 might properly be kept distinct under that designation; 

 secondly, N. fasciatus (the type of the genus Nisaetus) and 

 N. spilogaster ; and, thirdly, N. bellicosus, which is placed by 

 Mr. Sharpe amongst the Spizaeti, but which (following the 

 examples of Blyth'^ and Jerdonf) I refer to the genus Ni- 

 saetus, considering it decidedly too long in the wing to be 

 appropriately arranged among the more short- winged of the 

 Hawk-Eagles, in which company it appears in Mr. Sharpens 

 volume. 



Subsequently to the publication of Mr. Sharpe's work, 

 very full accounts of Nisaetus pennatus have appeared in Mr. 

 Dresser^s ' Birds of Europe,' and also in M. Bureau''s inter- 

 esting brochure, which has already been noticed in 'The 

 Ibis •" [antea, p. 245) ; and I have nothing to add to the 

 information there supplied, except to record that the Norwich 

 Museum possesses a specimen from Moulmein, which is a 

 more eastern locality than any recorded either by Mr, Sharpe 

 or by Mr. Dresser. 



To Mr. Sharpe ornithologists are indebted for pointing out 

 an excellent criterion for distinguishing this Eagle from its 

 nearly allied Australian congener, N. morphnoides, in the fact 

 that in the latter, and not in the former, the under surface 



* Vide 'Journal of the Asiatic Society/ vol. xiv. p. 174. 

 t Vide ' Birds of India,' vol. i. p. 67 (note). 



2g 2 



