42 BIRDS OF SOUTH AFRICA. 
T. C. Rickard writes :—“In the stomach of one I found a full-grown 
rat, eleven young ones, and a mouse.” 
Dr. Atherstone remarks of a specimen which he had alive :—“ He 
used to walk up and down the river’s bed catching frogs, and after- 
wards was so mean as to kill our pet toads and lizards on our grass 
plat.” Le Vaillant says they build on lofty trees, and line their 
nests thickly with feathers and wool: lay two round eggs, blotched 
with brownish-red. 
Upper parts glossy-brown, approaching to black, darkest on 
extremities of wings and tail, and lightest on the shoulders and 
cheeks. Tail barred more or less faintly with white on the upper 
side, the wings with black. Head crested; crest-feathers very long, 
and nearly black; feathers of head minutely tipped with white. 
Under parts almost black; legs feathered to the toes, and nearly 
pure white; inside of quill feathers of wings and tail silvery-grey ; 
barred with deep-brown. Iris bright yellow. Length, 25”; wing, 
16”; tail, 9”9’’’; length of crest, 5” 6”. 
Fig. Levaill, Ois. d’Afr. pl. 2. 
37. ASTURINULA MONOGRAMMICA, African Buzzard Eagle. 
The appearance of this bird is of interest as connecting the 
Avifauna of Southern Africa with that of the more northern portions 
of the continent. Dr. Hartlaub has described the Angolan bird as 
distinct from the ordinary form of Western Africa and in his catalogue 
of the Accipitres (p. 277) the editor was inclined to recognise this 
fact and separated it as Asturinula meridionalis (Hartl.), but having 
recently examined a series along with Mr. Gurney, he has come to 
the conclusion that the difference may be sexual, as he found a closely- 
barred specimen from West Africa. We therefore extract from the 
above-mentioned work a description of the Gambian bird, remarking 
at the same time that A. meridionalis was separated from A. mono- 
grammica on account of its having the bars on the lower parts much 
broader and darker, especially on the thigh feathers, and the white 
band on the tail much narrower. These characters were maintained 
both in the typical specimen from Angola as well as in a Zambesi 
skin in Shelley’s collection. 
The African Buzzard Eagle only just enters the country treated of 
in the present work, and never seems to come as low as the Cape 
Colony or even into Natal, as far as we know at present. Captain 
Shelley possesses a Zambesi specimen, and here it would seem to be 
