AQUILINAE. 37 
of sticks and twigs. The egg, there is only one, is a broadish 
oval, of a pale bluish-white color; the egg lining is a peculiar 
bright sap-green. The size of an average egg is 3 inches by 2°35. 
Genus, Spilornis, Gray. 
Bill straightish at the base ; wings short; head crested ; other- 
wise as in circactus. 
Spilornis cheela, Lath. 
39.—Jerdon’s Birds of India, Vol. I, p. 78; Butler, Deccan, &c. ; 
Stray Feathers, Vol. IX, p. 373; Murray’s Vertebrate Zoology 
of Sind, p. 80; Hume’s Scrap Book, p. 222. . 
THE CRESTED SERPENT EAGLE. 
g. Length, 26 to 28 ; expanse, 58 to 63 ; wing, 18'5 to 20; tail, 
12 to 13; tarsus, 3°9 to 43; bill from gape, 1:9. 
?. Length, 29 to 32; expanse, 67°5 to 73; wing, 195 to 21; 
tail, 14 to 15; tarsus, 415 to 45; bill from gape, 2°12. ; 
Cere and orbits deep yellow; irides bright yellow; legs dirty 
ellow. 
_ Adult: head black, the feathers white on their basal portion, 
and for nearly two-thirds their length, showing a conspicuous full 
black and white crest; above hair-brown; shoulders and lesser 
wing-coverts with small white spots, the quills with broad dusky 
bands ; tail brown, mottled and clouded with white, and with 
two broad blackish bands; beneath chin to breast unspotted 
brown; thence to under tail-coverts pale brown, with whitish 
faint bars, and white ocell1. 
The young bird has the upper plumage brown, edged with pale 
rufous, the crest feathers having more white than the adult; the 
tail hoary-brown, with three broad bars; quills brown, with 
darker bands, and the quills and medial wing-coverts tipped 
white; beneath pale whity-buff; the feathers of the breast 
darkest, and centred with brown; ear-coverts, and stripe beneath 
the eyes, deep black. 
_ The Crested Serpent or Indian Harrier Eagle is very rare ; one 
was obtained at Savantvadi by Mr. Crawford, and another in Sind 
by Mr. Blanford. These are, I believe, the only recorded in- 
stances of its occurrence within our limits. 
Spilornis melanotis, Jerd. 
39bis.—Butler, Deccan, &c.; Stray Feathers, Vol. IX, p. 373; 
Hume’s Scrap Book, p. 230. 
The Southern Harrier Eagle differs perceptibly from S. cheela 
of Upper India; the wings of the latter vary in the males from 
18°5 to nearly 20 inches, and in the females from 19-5 to nearly 21 ; 
while in this present species they vary in the males from 17 to 
barely 18 inches, and in the females from 18 to 18:5 inches; the 
lower parts also are somewhat less conspicuously ocellated, and 
