350 Letters, Announcements, ^c. 



showing the bird to be in a transition state. Can anyone throw 

 light on the subject ? Has any one seen the nestling Imperial 

 Eagle fully fledged ? and of what colour was the plumage ? 



One well-known bird here, Aquila fulvescens, which, after all 

 that has been said, may turn out to be A. navioides and not a 

 distinct species, has not a light-centred or striped plumage. 

 I have certainly shot sixty or seventy specimens ; and they vary, 

 from a very light faded brown, or sort of dirty buff, to a fine 

 dark hair-brown. Some of my specimens are patched with a 

 mixture of dark and light brown. But the darkest brown of 

 the " Wokhab,^^ is not equal to the fine rich clove-brown of the 

 Spotted Eagle {A. navia). The plumage, too, of A. fulvescens is 

 harsh to the touch, and not of that smooth softness which cha- 

 racterizes the plumage of A. navia. I may here remark, while 

 1 think of it, that the eggs of A. fulvescens frequently run very 

 large, sometimes exceeding those of Haliaetus leucoryphus and 

 Aquila imperialis. The bird, too, sometimes is found sufficiently 

 large and robust to be called A. navioides. I wish T had a few 

 skins of this last for comparison. My idea is that in the northern 

 parts of India the bird runs larger than in the more southern. 



The third Eagle which puzzles me is A. ncevia. I have many 

 specimens in the well-known spotted plumage figured by Yarrell 

 (B. B. 3rd ed. i. p. 20), with the under parts, excepting the 

 under tail-coverts, of a dark brown with lighter brown centres 

 to the feathers. This mode of marking gives the bird a striped 

 appearance below, which is not conspicuous at a distance, as the 

 two shades of brown approach each other nearer than they do 

 in what I take to be the two-year old Imperial Eagle. The 

 thighs or tibial plumes are more conspicuously marked by having 

 the feathers with pale centres. Even in this spotted plumage 

 (as seen in YarrelFs woodcut) the bird when sitting at a distance 

 of sixty or seventy yards presents a very dark appearance, quite 

 black-looking in fact. The old bird is, as is well known, of a 

 fine dark clove-brown without spots, and then has a truly black 

 appearance at a little distance. There are a few soft white 

 feathers at the lower end of the upper tail-coverts, just where 

 they join the tail. The upper parts of the shafts of the tail- 

 feathers are very white indeed, shaded gradually into the dark- 



