FALCONID^; EUTOLMAETUS 301 



near Mafeking (Bryden) ; Natal (Ayres) ; Transvaal Kustenburg 

 (Ayres) ; Khodesia Near Salisbury (Marshall) ; German south-west 

 Africa Otjimbinque, Omanes river, Omaruru, Ondonga (Andersson). 



Habits. This Hawk Eagle is a bold and fearless bird of heavy 

 but powerful flight ; it perches on rocks and trees and is fond of 

 returning to the same post of observation. Mr. Ayres gives a good 

 account of its habits as follows : " This Eagle swooped down from 

 the mountain and seized a Eameroon pigeon, which my brother 

 had wounded ; he fired at it and missed, but it only flew a few 

 yards and settled on a dead tree, evidently not liking to give up its 

 prey, and remaining there till he loaded again and shot it. Another 

 of these eagles caught a full grown fowl and ate it within a foot 

 of my brother's house. This Eagle is exceedingly destructive to 

 poultry; descending from the highest parts of the mountains it 

 skims quietly close to the ground and covered by any convenient 

 clump of bushes or trees it alights on the ground as near as it can, 

 and running among the grass seizes an unhappy fowl from amongst 

 the lot and proceeds to eat it on the spot. It is very quick on the 

 wing, and though very fearless when hungry, is generally shy and 

 difficult to approach. 



Mr. Marshall writes to me in regard to the breeding habits of 

 this bird. The nest, which he examined consisted of the usual 

 rough platform of sticks placed in a fork of a tree on the banks of 

 the Suro-suro river about 30 feet from the ground ; the female was 

 shot from the nest which contained one egg. This egg presented 

 by Mr. Marshall to the South African Museum is oval and some- 

 what rough, of a dirty white colour slightly blotched with very 

 pale brown; it measures 2'4 x 1'95. 



V S 



521. Eutolmaetus bellicosus. Martial Eagle. 



Le Griffard, Levaill. Ois. d'Afr. i, p. 1, pi. 1 (1799). 



Falco bellicosus, Daud. Traite, ii, p. 38 (1800). 



Aquila bellicosa, Smith, S. Afr. Quart. Journ. i, p. 112 (1830) ; id. III. 



Zool. S. Afr. Avcs, pi. 48 (1840) ; Gurney, Ibis, 1861, p. 129 [Natal] . 

 Spizaetus bellicosus, Layard, B. S. Afr. p. 13 (1867) ; Sharpe, Cat. B. M. 



i, p. 265 (1874) ; id. cd. Layard's B. S. Afr. p. 40 (1875); Kirby, 



Haunts Wild Game, p. 21 (1896) ; Bciclienow, V^g. Afr. i, p. 576 



(1901). 

 Nisaiitus bellicosus, Gurney, Ibis, 1877, pp. 419-422 ; Ayres, Ibis, 1884, 



p. 219 [Potchefstroom] ; Symonds, Ibis, 1887, p. 325 [KroonstadJ ; 

 I, B. Afr. i, p. 149 (1896). 



