182 
the Asiatic Society’s Museum ticketed Hastata was unmis- 
takeably Nwvia. 
No. 31. Hieraetus Pennatus. GMEL. 
THE Boorep KaAGtLe. 
' Of the nidification of this species in India, we know but 
little, and yet it is by no means an uncommon bird, in 
Upper India at any rate. Mr. Brookes says, “I have seen 
several at a time near Chunar in company with Milvus Govinda, 
they were seated on the ground during the heat of the day, 
near a shallow tank in which they had been bathing ; allowing 
me to go within twenty yards of them as they did, I could easily 
distinguish them from the IGtes.” 
Mr. R. Thompson writes: “I have commonly met with 
these birds in Gurhwal and Kumaon. The young are distin- 
guished by having a deal of white underneath. I once saw one 
dash into a tree in which a number of Parrakeets were assembled 
and catch and kill one. I have also seen them fly down to a 
Rat, and try and catch it on the ground.” 
T have shot them myself, in the Goorgaon district and near 
Umritsur in the Punjaub. 
Of their breeding elsewhere,I have seen but few detailed 
accounts. Lord Lilford has the following note on their nidifi- 
cation in Spain. 
“A little further on in the forest, we found a large nest on 
the lower branch of a Pine. Manuel crept cautiously up 
towards it, and shot a fine female Booted Hagle as she dashed off. 
He then made a cache with Pine boughs within shot of the nest, 
and in about half an hour another shot proclaimed to us that 
the male bird also had fallen. The nest contained two eggs ; 
Hastatas. Wet us hope, that under the new regime, this noble collection 
may be restored to something like its former condition. 
Talking of Mr. Blyth’s great services in the cause of science, during his 
twenty years’ slavery (for it was little else) in Calcutta, one cannot help feel- 
ing, that there is a sort of retributive justice, even in this world. The pompous 
Jacks in office, who alternately neglected, and attempted to patronize Mr. 
Blyth, (whose invaluable services they pretended to remunerate by a pittance 
less than they would have presumed to offer to their French cooks) are now 
either dead, or dragging out their crotchety existence in some old-Indian- 
peopled watering-place ; in either case, unknown and unhonoured ; while the 
name of Blyth, the naturalist, is known, and respected by men of science 
throughout the civilized globe. 
