SPI/AETUS. 39 



Uniform brown black, paler and duller beneath. Upper tail coverts barred 

 with white, feathers of the tail more or less distinctly barred with ashy ; quills 

 mottled with white or greyish white near the base and faintly barred on their 

 inner webs. Cere, gape, and feet deep yellow ; bill greenish horny, black at 

 the tip ; iris dark brown. 



Male. Length 27-5 to 29-5 inches; wing 22 to 227; tail i2'8 to 14; 

 culmen 2*05 ; tarsus 3*4. 



Female. 30-5 to 31*5; wing 23 to 25-5; tail 14 to U'75 ; tarsus 3-62 

 to 375- 



Hab. The Indian Peninsula, Ceylon, Burmah, the Malayan Peninsula to 

 Java and Sumatra. It occurs in Malabar, in the Wynaad, Coorg, the Western 

 Ghats, Travancore, Central India, the Punjab, N.-W. Provinces, throughout 

 the Himalayas, Nepal, and Ceylon. 



Jerdon says it is a bird of easy, graceful, and elegant flight, always soaring 

 and circling about at no great height, with hardly any flapping of its wings. 

 It lives chiefly on eggs of birds and nestlings. 



Gen. SpizaetUS Vieil. 



Form aquiline ; bill short, high at the base, curved, hooked at the tip ; upper 

 mandible with a festoon ; wing short, tail long and square ; tarsi moderate, 

 feathered to the base ; inner toe without the claw, shorter than the outer. 



36. Spizaetus nipalensis, Hodgs. J. A. S. B. v. p. 229, pi. 7 ; Gray, 



Cat. Ace. p. 8 ; Blyth, J* A S. B. xix. p. 333 ; Hume, Rough Notes, i. p. 

 2lo; Sharpe, Cat. Ace. B. M. p. 267. Limnaetus nipalensis, Jerd. B. Ind. 

 i. p. 73, No. 36; Holdsw. P. Z. S. 1872, p. 41 1. The SPOTTED or HODGSON'S 

 HAWK EAGLE. 



Adult Male. Crown of the head, occipital crest, ear coverts, cheeks, sides 

 of the neck and nape blackish brown ; the occipital crest, which is usually from 

 2-5 to 4 inches in length, is tipped with white, and the feathers on the nape, 

 cheeks, and sides of neck edged with tawny ; chin and throat white or fulvous 

 white with a broad streak of black down the centre ; back, scapulars, wing 

 coverts and secondaries deep brown, the feathers with darker transverse bars ; 

 upper tail coverts a lighter brown than the back, narrowly tipped with white, 

 and with broad transverse white bars ; tail pale brown, narrowly tipped with 

 white, and with 4 5 broad transverse, deep brown bands broader than the inter- 

 spaces ; neck in front and upper breast a mixture of brownish and fulvous 

 white, the feathers broadly centred with blackish brown ; rest of under surface 

 including tarsal feathers which reach to between the inner and middle toes 

 brown, barred transversely with white or fulvous white ; under wing coverts 

 white or fulvous white, also barred or spotted with brown ; cere and bill black ; 

 feet dirty yellowish white ; iris yellow. 



