Letters, Announcements, tyc. 99 



1871, at p. 37, remained nevertheless an open question till a 

 still larger series of skins had been examined. 



Through the kindness of Mr. H. E. Dresser and other or- 

 nithological friends, I have quite recently had the opportunity 

 of examining a larger series of these Eagles than I had pre- 

 viously seen, including some splendid Indian Eagles lately 

 presented to the Norwich Museum by Mr. W. E. Brooks and 

 Mr. A. Anderson; and I am now quite satisfied that Mr. H. 

 Saunders was right in considering the Imperial Eagle of the 

 Spanish peninsula specifically distinct from its more eastern 

 congener ; but as both species are, I understand, likely to be 

 figured and described before long in Messrs. Sharpe and 

 Dresser's ' Birds of Europe/ it will be needless for me here to 

 recapitulate the distinctions which exist between them. 



The Spanish bird will stand as Aquila adalberti of L. 

 Brehm*, while the more eastern species should bear its oldest 

 synonym (that under which its immature plumage was figured 

 and described by J. G. Gmelin) of Aquila mogilnik. This 

 species is found in South-eastern Europe, whence it ex- 

 tends eastwards to China ; and it also occurs in India, Egypt, 

 and Abyssinia ; but the geographical boundary between its 

 western range and the eastern range of Aquila adalberti is 

 still undetermined. . 



Aquila bifasciata, Gray, is a third allied but distinct species, 

 of which I have never seen specimens except from India. 

 This species (though not in adult plumage) is well figured 

 by Dr. J. E. Gray in his ' Illustrations of Indian Zoology from 

 the collection of Major-General Hardwicke/ and has been 

 recently described in the 'Proceedings of the Zoological 

 Society ' for 1872, at p. 502, by Mr. W. E. Brooks, and at 

 p. 619 by Mr. A. Andersonf; but there is one plumage of 

 this Eagle to which neither of these naturalists has referred, 

 and which I therefore think it well briefly to notice. The 

 general appearance of the bird in this stage agrees with Dr. 

 Gray's plate above referred to, with the following exceptions : — 



* Vide Ibis for 1805, p. 359, second footnote. 



t I may mention that the species referred to in both these papers under 

 the name of " Aquila crassipcs, Hodgson," is Aquila mogilnik. 



H 2 



