40 BIRDS OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
Irides yellow ; bill and claws horn-colour ; toes yellow. Length, 3; 
wing, 1’ 9”; tail, 1’ 3”. 
Immature birds are much paler than the adults, and are almost 
entirely white underneath. 
Fig. Smith, Il. Zool. S. Afr. pls. 40, 41. 
35. SPIZAETUS BELLICOSUS. Martial Hawk-Eagle. 
This species is very scarce in the colony, only two specimens 
having fallen under onr notice. One was procured at the Knysna by 
Mr. George Rex, the other at Colesberg by Mr. Arnot. 
Mr. Gueinzius procured a specimen in Natal, which was shot with 
“a young goat in its talons,” and Mr. Rickard has obtained it at 
Port Elizabeth. The latter gentleman writes:—“Mr. Hallack 
informs me that a fine male was killed at Betheledorp in May, 1869.” 
Mr. Baines shot one between Mount Lubels and Mount N’guiba, 
twenty or twenty-five miles south of Lake N’gami. Regarding its 
occurrence in Damara Land, Mr. Andersson observes :—“I never 
identified but one pair, which I found close to Objimbinque and the 
female of which I killed.” 
It is of this species that Mr. Atmore writes, in epistold :—“ Just 
as we were leaving the Kuysna, we heard of an eagle’s nest in the 
forest, and under the tree the person who found it counted 95 heads 
of the little ‘ Blue Buck’ (Cephalophus cerula).” Mr. Tom Atmore 
informs us that the tree was an enormous “ yellow-wood,” quite in- 
accessible ; and the nest a huge mass of sticks impervious to a bullet. 
The Hon. Mr. Vigne informs us that one of these birds attacked his 
sheep-kraal and killed the lambs, It was ultimately caught in a 
steel trap placed near the kraal, 
Mr. Harford gives me the following description obtained from 
Mr. T, Ayres of the egg of this species :—‘“ Chalky white, faintly 
spotted and blotched with light reddish brown, shape roundish. 
Axis, 3,5;in.; diam. 2,%, in. The nest was taken in the Orange 
Free State, June 10th, 1870, placed in a large tree, old and gnarled, 
on the side of a rough pyramidal granite hill. It was about five feet 
in diameter, composed of the usual rough sticks, and lined with fresh 
green twigs. It contained one egg only, and that much incubated.” 
This egg and the old bird are now in the collection of Canon 
Tristram, 
