1874.] BIEDS FEOM THE ANDAMAN ISLANDS. 255 



the advantage of being able to examine a valuable collection made in the same islands by 

 Captain Wimberley. This gentleman has sent home the first specimens known in Europe of 

 Mnox affinis, Tytlcr, an excellent species; and he has also forwarded a numerous series of 

 Spilornis elgini, which leaves no doubt of the validity of that species as distinguished from 

 S. bacha — an opinion in which I believe I am entitled to say that Mr. J. H. Gurney concurs. 



63. LiMNAETUs ANDAMANENSis (Tytler), P. A. S. B. 1865, p. 112, " Port Blair, Andamans." 



S])}zaetus audamanensis. Toiler: Beavan, Ibis, 1867, p. 315. no. 6; Hume, Scrap Book, 

 p. 203 (1869). 



"S. Andaman, April 15 ; d , bill slaty horn-colour; cere greenish; iris amber; toes dirty 

 yellow." 



Lower surface from chin to vent pure white, the terminal portion of most of the feathers 

 being centred with rich brown, imparting a streaked appearance to this portion of the plumage, ibis, 1874, 

 a distinct brown line descending from the chin to the breast. Under tail-coverts and axillaries P" ^^^' 

 pale dingy ferruginous brown, irregularly barred with white. The elongated flank-plumes 

 covering the thighs white, terminated and blotched with pale ferruginous brown. Thigh-coverts 

 pale ferruginous brown, those of the tarsus white, here and there speckled with brown. Head 

 and nape clothed with lanceolate feathers, white at their base, the terminal and exposed portion 

 of each centred with dark brown and margined with ferruginous. No crest-plumes. Remainder 

 of upper plumage dark brown, each feather with more or less of paler marginal shading. Upper 

 surface of rectrices the same. Middle pair with four narrow ill-defined but very dark brown trans- 

 verse bars, and a broad terminal dark brown band fringed with albescent. The rectrices under- 

 neath albescent, the brown bands strongly contrasting. Under wing-coverts white, irregularly 

 but boldly banded with dark brown. Quills underneath albescent, with three or four dark 

 brown transverse bands and tipped with the same colour. Basal half of the quills almost pure 

 white. Quills above, when closed, dark brown. 



Wing 13-24 inches ; tarsus 3-6 ; tail 10-4 ; bill from gape 1'7 ; total length 21-8 (in the flesh). 



This Eagle is a crestless form ofi. ceijlonensis {Gm..)* ^wA. oi L. cirrhatus (Gm.). The 

 specimen above described is absolutely identical in plumage with a Candeish example of L. 

 cirrhatus. It cannot be confounded with L. alhoniger (Blyth) in any stage of plumage; for the 

 adolescent plumage in that species is of a uniform buflp, and when older, but before it has put on 

 its handsome full dress of black and white, the markings are ferruginous bufi", and not brown. 

 But the best difiereutiating character of L. alloniger is to be found in the first joint of the 

 middle toe being feathered for full half its length, — a character it has in common with the much 

 larger L. nipaleiisis, and which is also possessed to a less extent by the Celebesian representative 

 form of that species, L. lanceolatus. 



64. Haliaetus leucogaster (Gm.), S. N. i. p. 257. no. 43 (1788). iWs, 1S74, 



p. li'J. 

 " Macpherson Straits, S. Andaman, March 5 : bill dark slate ; legs dirty white ; iris 



yellowish grey." 



A young male in first plumage. 



* Probably =Sjaiz(ieH<s sjiMnx, Hume, Str. Feath. i. p. 321. 



2l2 



