GOLDEN EAGLE. 105 
or species. ‘The northern form, A. chrysaetus, is said always to have some 
rufous colour on the breast, and in the adult bird has the basal half of 
every feather, including the quills and tail-feathers, mottled or marbled 
with brown, which gradually disappears, leaving the terminal half uniform 
brown. The southern form, 4. fulvus (which I take to be the young), is 
said never to have any rufous colour on the breast, and the basal half of 
the small feathers of the body are said to remain white throughout life ; 
but the white basal half of the quills and tail-feathers in the adult become 
mottled, similarly to that of its near ally, but more defined. I am, how- 
ever, of the opinion that this so-called adult 4. fulvus is only an interme- 
diate stage between young and adult of A. chrysaetus, in which the quills 
and tail are a stage in advance of the smaller feathers of the body, which 
have not yet been moulted. Severtzow obtained examples in Turkestan 
exactly the reverse of this, and called them A. intermedia, apparently birds 
which had moulted the small feathers into the adult plumage, but still 
retained the immature quills and tail-feathers. At all ages the terminal 
half of a newly-moulted feather is a rich chocolate-brown, which gradually 
fades into a pale greyish brown, and the crown and nape are more or less 
rusty, approaching gold-colour in newly-moulted old birds.  Ivrides rich 
hazel-brown ; cere and feet yellow; bill and claws dark horn-colour. The 
female resembles the male, but is slightly larger. Accidental varieties, 
with one or two white feathers in the scapulars, occasionally occur: 
Messrs. Jaubert and Barthélemy-Lapommeraye record an example from 
the south of France ; Loche met with several in Algeria; and Dixon saw 
one in Scotland. This peculiarity is permanently developed in the adult 
Eastern Imperial Eagle, and is said frequently to occur in the Booted 
Eagle. In von Homeyer’s magnificent collection of Eagles I observed 
examples of both young and adult Lesser Spotted Eagles with one or two 
white feathers in the scapulars. The Golden Eagles figured by Dresser 
are so hopelessly bad that it is impossible to believe that they were drawn 
by Wolf, the statement on the plate to that effect being no doubt a mis- 
print. At no stage of plumage has the Golden Eagle a regularly barred 
tail, as there represented ; nor have I ever heard of any local race supposed 
to possess one. A circumpolar bird like the Golden Eagle is sure to pre- 
sent some local variations in colour; but none of these have been satisfac- 
torily determined. The British and Scandinavian birds are more rufous 
(less grey) than those from Central Europe, and American birds are still 
more so; but how far they may be subspecifically separable has not yet 
been ascertained. 
