l6o FALCONIFORMES 



Pithecopliaga jcfferyi, a fine forest Eagle from the Philippines, 

 witli extremely, deep and compressed bill, seems to belong here/ 



The true Eagles — fierce but seldom courageous — inhabit wild 

 mountains, plains, or forests ; resembling Buzzards in their slow- 

 heavy flight, and rarely uttering their shrill cry or yelp. The prey 

 is generally secured by a pounce ; and carrion, if fairly fresh, is 

 eaten. The nest of sticks or twigs, lined with grass, green foliage, 

 fur or wool, especially the two first, contains from one to three 

 large white eggs, with or without red or brownish markings. 



The various species of Spizaetus, Limna'ctus, ZophotrioixMs, 

 Lophoaeius, JVeopus, and Nisa'etus, with comparatively short 

 wings, long tails, and large claws, are sometimes denominated 

 Hawk-Eagles. Not usually shy, they are essentially denizens 

 of wooded country, where some prefer the hilly districts, others 

 the neighbourhood of streams ; the food is extremely varied, 

 including in different cases, monkeys, bucks, lambs, goats, hares, 

 rabbits, birds as large as bustards and geese, lizards, frogs, or 

 even fish ; while the flight is more graceful and Falcon-like 

 than in the genus Aquila, the note clearer and sharper. The 

 moderately large nest is composed of sticks, and usually lined 

 with green leaves or branchlets ; the one or two eggs are w^hite, 

 ordinarily with light reddish-brown markings. Spizaetus coronatus 

 of South and West Africa is blackish above, with a little white 

 on the tail-coverts and remiges, and brownish tips to the triply- 

 barred rectrices, the buff lower parts being broadly banded with 

 black. S. tyrannus, extending from Guatemala to Brazil, is black 

 beneath ; S. ornatus, of Central and South America as far as Para- 

 guay, has the nape and sides of the neck and chest tawny. These 

 birds have an occipital crest, as have some members of the hardly 

 separable Limnaetus, of which L. caligatiis, of India and the Malay 

 countries, deep brown in colour, with ashy inner webs to the remiges, 

 will serve as an example. L. nip)alensis and L. cirratus inhabit 

 India with Ceylon, and the former Pormosa and Japan ; L. philip)- 

 pensis the Philippines; L. alhoniger Malacca and Borneo ; L. lanceo- 

 latas Celebes and the Sula Islands ; L. yurneyi New Guinea and 

 the Moluccas ; L. (Lophotriorchis) Ideneri India, Malacca, Borneo, 

 and Batchian ; L. isidori north-western South America. Loplio- 

 aetus occipitalis, of Africa south of the Sahara, is brown, except for 

 a few white marks above, and has shortly-feathered white metatarsi. 



1 Ogilvie Grant, Ilns, 1897, pp. 214-220. 



