AQUILINE. 33 



toes unequal, large ; claws large, strong and much curved ; 

 usually crested. 



Limnaetus cirrhatus, Gm. 



35. Limnaetus criMaletlus^TQm. Jerdon's Birds of India, Vol. 

 I, p. 71 ; Butler, Deccan, &c. ; Stray Feathers, Vol. IX, p. 373 ; 

 Guzerat, Stray Feathers, Vol. Ill, p. 446 ; Hume's Scrap Book 

 p. 206. 



cf. Length, 24 ; wing, 16 ; tail, 11 ; tarsus, 4. 



$ . Length, 29 ; wing, 17'5 ; tail, 12'5. 



Irides yellow, dun-brown in the young birds ; cere and feet 

 pale yellow. 



Young : pale brown above ; head and neck fulvous ; long occipital 

 crest black, with white tip ; feathers of the head and neck 

 white-edged ; beneath, white, with some small light fulvous or 

 brown spots on the breast and lower parts. 



There is less white on the wing-coverts than in the young of 

 the last, and the bars on the tail are wider. 



The adult bird has the occipital crest sometimes five inches 

 long, and of as many as twelve feathers of different lengths, 

 deep black, tipped with white ; the head and neck fulvescent- 

 brown, with dark mesial streaks ; upper plumage glossy hair- 

 brown ; the scapulars, interscapulars, and tertiaries, more or 

 less black ; the wing-feathers banded more or less distinctly ; 

 tail light greyish-brown, with three or four dark bands, the 

 last one broader ; beneath, the foreneck and breast pure white, 

 with a broad dark mesial streak to each feather, and three dark 

 lines on the white throat, not so distinct, however, as in the last, 

 from all the feathers being more or less streaked ; belly, flanks, 

 vent, and under tail-coverts dark brown ; thighs the same, only 

 a little freckled with whitish ; tarsal feathers mottled white 

 and fulvous-brown. 



The above is Jerdon's description, to which I will add an 

 extract from Stray Feathers, Vol. IV, p. 356, by Mr. Hume : 



" The youngest birds of cirrhatus, when they first issue from 

 the nest, have the entire head, neck all round, chin, throat and 

 entire under parts white ; only on the crown and sides of the 

 neck is there a slight fulvous tinge, and a few of these feathers have 

 linear brown shaft stripes, and the flanks and the upper portion 

 of the tibia have a pinkish fawn-colored tinge ; the entire chin, 

 throat, breast, and abdomen, absolutely pure spotless white ; the 

 crest black, with usually very little white tipping ; the tertiaries 

 and secondary greater-coverts, conspicuously margined with 

 white ; the tail with six or seven transverse darker brown bars> 

 besides the subterminal one which is not wider than the others. A 

 little later a buffy fawn-colored tinge spreads over the whole head 

 and sides of the neck, a few of the feathers of the breast get a 

 faint tinge of the same color, and these exhibit a linear shaft 



3 



