AQUILINE. 35 



Deccan, where it is not uncommon ; it is more plentiful at Ratna- 

 giri. It is a permanent resident, but nothing certain is known in 

 regard to its nidification. It has been observed at and near 

 Aboo, but has not yet been recorded from Sind. 



Limnaetus kienerii, Oerv. 



37. Jerdon's Birds of India, Vol. I, p. 74 ; Hume's Scrap 



Book, p, 216. 



THE RUFOUS-BELLIED HAWK EAGLE. 



Length, 22 to 29; expanse, 50; wing, 15 to 17'5 ; tail, 10 to 

 12'5 ; bill from gape, 1'5 ; tarsus, 3. 



Bill leaden-blue ; cere yellow ; irides brown ; feet yellow ; 

 claws black. 



" The whole of the top and sides of the head, including the 

 lores, cheeks, and ear-coverts, the back and sides of the neck, 

 the back, scapulars, rump, and upper tail-coverts, and lesser and 

 median wing-coverts, a nearly uniform blackish brown ; the 

 feathers all with more or less of metallic reflections, some green- 

 ish, some purplish ; in some lights the whole of these parts 

 appear to be almost, if not quite, black. The tail-feathers are 

 a dark chocolate brown ; the central ones, with two or three 

 faint irregular paler patches, traces of where bars may have been ; 

 the lateral ones, with broad, but faint and irregular, paler and 

 mottled transverse bars. The under surface of the tail-feathers, 

 a sort of silver-grey ; the shafts white, a broad ill-defined dusky 

 terminal patch, and in all, but the exterior feathers, four or five 

 somewhat narrow transverse dusky bars above this ; the quills 

 are of two colors, the one set which appear to be older, dingy 

 hair-brown ; the others, almost blackish-brown, with faint green 

 or purple reflections. The inner webs in all are paler, except 

 quite at the tips ; and above these, there are dim transverse 

 darker bars. The first five quills are conspicuously notched on 

 the inner web, and the second to the fifth are emarginate on the 

 outer web. The chin, throat, and breast are white ; the feathers 

 tinged towards the tips with pale rufous, and most of them with 

 narrow, blackish-brown lanceolate shaft stripes. The whole of 

 the wing-lining, (except the lower greater primary-coverts), 

 axillaries, sides, flanks, abdomen, tarsal and tibial plumes, vent 

 and lower tail-coverts, bright ferruginous ; most of the feathers 

 dark shafted, and many of those of the wing-lining, abdomen 

 and sides with a conspicuous narrow, black, shaft stripe, and a 

 few of the feathers just above the base of the tibia, very broadly 

 tipped with blackish-brown, forming a very conspicuous patch." 

 Humes Stray Feathers, Vol. I, p. 311. 



Jerdon remarks in his Birds of India, that " this beautiful 

 Hawk Eagle has been found in Central India, and in the Hima- 

 layas, but appears very rare. No other observer appears to have 

 met with it within the district. 



