Pay SPOTTED EAGLE. 
manner, to do between the Eagles and the Vultures. In fact, 
though called an Eagle, and classed with those birds, it would 
seem to be possessed of more of the characteristics of the 
Buzzards. 
The Spotted Eagle flies low in hawking after its prey. It 
feeds on rabbits, rats, and other small animals and reptiles, 
as also on birds, particularly on ducks, as well as on some 
of the larger species of insects. 
It builds on high trees, and lays two whitish eggs, slightly 
streaked with red. Like the Osprey, it seems to suffer smaller 
birds to build without molestation, in the immediate vicinity 
of its nest, or even in the outer parts of the nest itself. 
This species is about two thirds the size of the Golden 
Nagle in linear dimensions. It measures about two feet three 
and a half or four inches in length. Jn the adult state, the 
general colour of the plumage is brown, varying in depth of 
tint according to the age of the bird. The bill is dark bluish 
horn-colour; cere, yellow. The head, both above and below, 
of a light brown; neck, dark reddish brown, the feathers, as 
in the Golden Eagle, being hackles; back, the same colour. 
The breast is rather lighter than the back. The wings, which 
when closed reach to the end of the tail, have the fourth 
and fifth quill feathers nearly of an equal Jength, but the fifth 
rather the longer, as if is also the longest in the wing; the 
primaries are almost black—all the feathers white at the base. 
The tail coverts are bright brown; tail, dusky black, barred 
with a paler colour, and the end of a reddish hue. The feet 
are yellow; claws, black. 
The young bird in its first year has the bill of a dark bluish 
horn-colour, darker towards the tip than at the base; cere, 
yellow; iris, hazel; the head, neck, and back, dark chocolate 
brown; breast, the same; the margins of the greater and lesser 
coverts, as also the tertials, tipped in a well-defined elliptical 
form with yellowish white or white. The tail is dark chocolate 
brown. The legs are feathered down to the feet, and these 
feathers are variegated with lighter shades of brown; toes, 
yellow, reticulated for part of their length, but ending with 
four large broad scales; claws, nearly black. In its second 
year, the colour of the whole plumage becomes more uniformly 
of a general dark reddish brown. 
