collected in the Philippine Islands. 91 



I should not have gone again to Saraar had my first col- 

 lection reached its destination. 



Returning to Samar in the month of May, 1896, we once 

 more reached our old collecting-grounds and recommenced 

 forming another collection of birds. 



The forests that are left in Samar are still very vast, 

 especially on the Pacific coast, but for miles inland those of 

 the western coast have been destroyed, leaving ranges of low 

 undulating clay hills, chiefly covered with lalang grass. When 

 this country has been passed the traveller finds himself at an 

 elevation of nearly 1000 feet and meets with the true virgin 

 forest of Samar. This forest is becoming annually smaller 

 owing to the cultivation of hemp on suitable soils. Fortu- 

 nately, however, much of this country is covered with rough, 

 sharp blocks of limestone^ which is unsuitable for planting. 

 The trees in these forests are often very high, some quite 

 200 feet ; but I have seen forest-trees higher than these at 

 the foot of Canloon volcano, in Negros. In these lofty 

 forests the Great Philippine Eagle has made his home, with 

 no enemies to trouble him. He is well known to the natives 

 as a robber of their poultry and small pigs, but chiefly as a 

 destroyer of monkeys, which are the only animals sufficiently 

 abundant in these forests to support such a large bird. We 

 had noticed on more than one occasion this large Eagle flying 

 along the edge of the forest and had heard its peculiar plaintive 

 cry, " w-aii wau," still more often^ but as week after week 

 passed there seemed little likelihood that we should secure a 

 specimen. One morning, however^ my servant Juan returned 

 with this huge bird, which he shot with an old muzzle-loader, 

 luckily putting one buckshot into its neck. The Eagle 

 fastened its talons round the branch in its death-grip and 

 hung firmly fixed near the top of the tree. Juan, after firing 

 several other shots, which failed to move it, sooner than lose 

 the bird, climbed the tree and secured the prize. AVhen he 

 handed it over to me it was so heavy that I could hardly 

 hold it out at arm's length in my then enfeebled state of 

 health. I should guess its weight to have been between 

 15 and 20 lbs. 



