422 Letters, Announcements, 6$c. 



Mr. Buller and I carefully compared the adult males 

 of C. wolfi and C. gouldi, and were both convinced that the 

 two species are quite distinct. 



Mr. Buller writes respecting C. wolfi, " it appears to me to 

 be readily distinguishable from our bird (C. gouldi) by its 

 blackish crown and ear-coverts, and likewise by the much 

 darker colour of its wing-coverts." 



I may add that C. wolfi is equally distinct from C. spilonotus, 

 to which Professor Schlcgel was disposed to refer it, but which 

 I have never seen from any locality south of Singapore. 



I am yours, &c. 



J. H. GURNEY. 



Northrepps, Norwich, 

 August 11, 1873. 



Sir,— In 'The Ibis' for 1870, p. 67, Messrs. Elwes and 

 Buckley quote a letter written by me in which I express 

 an opinion that two Eagles obtained by those gentlemen from 

 M. Alleon, who procured them during their northward vernal 

 migration near the Bosphorus, were specimens of Aquila ncs- 

 vioides in an unusually dark phase of plumage. 



I was confirmed in this opinion by finding in one of these 

 specimens two small particoloured scapular feathers, which 

 appeared to me to indicate that the bird was commencing the 

 assumption of the particoloured plumage which always dis- 

 tinguishes adult South- African specimens of Aquila navioides, 

 and in which the great majority of the feathers are coloured 

 partly rufous and partly purplish brown, the two tints being 

 both present and sharply defined and contrasted on the same 

 feather. 



This specimen is now in the hands of Mr. W. E. Brooks, 

 of Assensole, Bengal, who has been so good as to inform me 

 that it is identical with the Indian Aquila bifasciata in fully 

 adult plumage — a stage in which A. bifasciata was unknown 

 to me until I became acquainted with it from the result of Mr. 

 Brooks's zealous investigations in India. 



Mr. Brooks has further been so good as to me send two small 

 particoloured feathers, plucked from a specimen of Aquila hi- 



