THE ROUGH-LEGGED BUZZARD EAGLE. Ill 



AQUILA LAGOPUS. 

 THE ROUGH-LEGGED BUZZARD EAGLE. 



(PLATE 5.) 



Accipiter falco, var. leucocephalus, Briss. Orn. i. p. 325 (1760). 

 Falco lagopus, Briinn. Orn. Bor. p. 4 (1764). 

 Falco norvegicus, Lath. Gen. Syn. Suppl. i. p. 282 (1787). 



Falco lagopus, Briinn. Gmel. Syst. Nat. i. p. 260 (1788) ; et auctorum plurimorum 

 Xaiimann, (Gould), Schlegel, (Gray),(Neictori),(Salvadori), (Sharpe), (Dresser). 

 Falco sclavonicus, Lath. Ind. Orn. i. p. 26 (1790). 

 Buteo pennatus, Dand. Traite, ii. p. 156 (1800). 

 Falco plumipes, Daud. op. cit. ii. p. 163 (1800, ex Levaifl.). 

 Buteo lagopus (Briinn.), Leach, Syst. Cat. Mamm. $c. Brit. Mus. p, 10 (1816). 

 Archibuteo lagopus (Briinn.), Brehm, Isis, 1828, p. 1269. 

 Butaetes lagopus, Bp. Comp. List B. Eur. fy N. Amer. p. 3 (1838). 



The Rough-legged Buzzard Eagle is a somewhat aberrant species of the 

 genus Aquila, inasmuch as the back of the tarsus is not feathered. It 

 has hitherto been placed among the Buzzards. Sharpe, in his first volume 

 of the ' Catalogue of the Birds in the British Museum/ separates the 

 subfamily of Aquilime from the subfamily of Buteoninae, characterizing 

 the former as having the back of the tarsus reticulate, and the latter 

 as having it scaled. He figures the tarsus of the Rough-legged Buzzard 

 Eagle with the feathers at the back parted to show the scales, in order 

 to prove that, although the species in his genus Archibuteo have the 

 front and sides of the tarsus feathered like some of the Eagles, they have 

 nevertheless the back of the tarsus scaled like true Buzzards, and not 

 reticulate as is the case with those Eagles in which the tarsus is not 

 feathered. Unfortunately for his argument, the back of the tarsus of the 

 Rough-legged Buzzard Eagle happens not to be scaled, but is reticulate, 

 as is also the case with the other species in his genus Archibuteo ; so that 

 they are certainly Eagles and not Buzzards, according to his own definition. 

 The Eagles and the Buzzards are so nearly related that there can be no 

 excuse whatever for placing them in separate subfamilies ; and the Rough- 

 legged Buzzard Eagle and its allies differ so little from the true Eagles 

 that there seems no adequate reason for considering them more than sub- 

 generically distinct. My friend Dr, Gadow informs me that he has dis- 

 sected many of these birds, and that he has found that in many points of 

 their anatomy the Rough-legged Buzzard Eagle and the Spotted Eagle 

 are very closely allied. I have therefore discarded the use of the genus 

 Archibuteo, as being a name likely to mislead. 



The Rough-legged Buzzard Eagle can only be looked upon as a pretty 



