CROWNED EAGLE 51 
CROWNED EAGLE 
Harpyhaliaétus coronatus 
Above ashy brown, with a long crest of darker feathers; wings 
grey with blackish tips; tail black with a broad white median band 
and white tip; beneath pale ashy brown; length 33, wing 22 inches. 
Female similar but larger. 
I MET with this fine Eagle on the Rio Negro, in 
Patagonia, where d’Orbigny also found it; the 
entire Argentine territory comes, however, within 
its range. Having merely seen it perched on the tall 
willows fringing the Rio Negro, or soaring in wide 
circles far up in the sky, I cannot venture to speak 
of its habits, while the account of them which 
d’Orbigny built up is not worth quoting, for he does 
not say how he got his information. One of his 
statements would, if true, be very important indeed. 
He says that his attention was drawn to a very curious 
fact concerning the Crowned Harpy, which was, that 
this bird preys chiefly on the skunk—an animal, he 
very truly adds, with so pestilential an odour that 
even the most carnivorous of mammals are put to 
flight by it; that it is the only bird of prey that 
kills the skunk, and that it does so by precipitating 
itself from a vast height upon its quarry, which it 
then quickly despatches. It would not matter at 
all whether the Eagle dropped from a great or a 
moderate height, for in either case the skunk would 
receive its enemy with the usual pestilent discharge. 
D’Orbigny’s account is, however, pure conjecture, 
