350 FALCONIDJE. 



white ; upper parts generally umber-brown, not uniform, some 

 feathers having darker centres or shafts and paler border ; quills 

 brown above, light grey or white below 7 , with blackish bars and 

 tips, inner webs white towards the base ; tail brown above, light 

 grey beneath, usually with 5 blackish cross-bars, more rarely 4, 

 the first concealed by the coverts, the last broadest, followed by 

 a whitish tip ; pale interspaces as a rule broader than dark bars, 

 and last pale interspace much broader than the others ; chin and 

 throat white, streaked with black, the black streaks generally 

 forming three longitudinal stripes, one median and two lateral ; 

 breast white with large spots, elongate, black, and generally fringed 

 with rufous ; abdomen and lower tail-coverts umber- brown, thighs 

 generally more rufous, and tarsus whitish, the feathers dark- 

 shafted as a rule throughout, especially on the legs ; smaller under 

 wing-coverts dull rufous, brow*n-shafted; greater lower wing-coverts 

 white with brown cross-bands ; axillaries greyish brown with dark 

 shafts. 



Young birds have the head and neck rufous-buff to buffy white, 

 generally but not always with dark centres or shaft-stripes to the 

 feathers, which in some very young birds have white tips ; feathers 

 of upper plumage brown, generally pale-edged; quills and tail 

 with more dark bands than in adults, there being 7 on the tail 

 including the subterminal one ; lower parts white or buff or pale 

 rufous, generally with a few rufous-brown spots, darker at the 

 shafts ; as a rule the flanks, lower abdomen, thigh-coverts, lower 

 tail-coverts, and tarsal feathers are banded with pale rufous and 

 white ; traces of this banding are often found in older birds. 



Bill dark plumbeous, black at the tip ; cere dark leaden in adult, 

 yellow in young birds ; irides leaden grey, pale straw-colour, or 

 golden yellow ; feet yellow. The feathers of the tarsus do not 

 extend quite to the base of the toes. 



Length of a male about 26 inches ; tail 11 ; wing 16 : of a 

 female length 29 ; tail 12 ; wing 17 ; tarsus 4 ; bill from gape 1'8. 

 Ceylonese and some South Indian birds are considerably smaller 

 and measure : tail 9 to 1O5, wing 13-5 to 15-2. They have been 

 distinguished as Spizaetus ceylonensis, and form a well-marked race, 

 but differing only, like so many animals from the e'xtreme south 

 of India and Ceylon, in size, and therefore I think not to be 

 separated as a distinct species. S. sphynoc of Hume, from Travan- 

 core, is an old bird of this Southern variety with, as often happens 

 in old birds, no white on the crest. 



Distribution. The Peninsula of India and Ceylon in well-wooded 

 tracts. Only an occasional straggler is found on the great Indo- 

 Gangetic plain of Northern India, as in the case of a specimen 

 obtained by Hume at Etawah ; as a rule the northern limit of this 

 bird from Mount Abu to Midnapore in Bengal is the edge of the 

 hilly country. 



Habits, 6fc. Very similar to those of other Indian Spizaeti. This 

 is a forest bird, usually seen on trees, often, as Jerdon says, " on 

 the top of a high tree, where it watches for hares, partridges, 



