250 The Falcon-like Birds 



bands. It is found along timber-covered ravines, and feeds largely upon snakes 

 and lizards, the stomach of one killed in South Africa by Mr. Thomas Ayres 

 containing the remains of a very poisonous snake that could not have been 

 less than seven or eight feet in length. 



Serpent Eagles. More numerous in species, and also natives of the Oriental 

 region, are the Serpent Eagles (Spilornis}, which differ from those last con- 

 sidered " by having a broad nuchal crest covering the whole nape, and by the 

 peculiar coloration, being brown above and below in adults, all but one or two 

 with rounded white spots or ocelli on the lower parts." Their wings are short 

 and rounded, the 4th or 5th quill being longest, while the tarsus, toes, and claws 

 are the same as in the Harrier- Eagles. 



The Serpent Eagles, a name, by the way, which is sometimes applied to the 

 last group, but which is best restricted to the present, take their common name 

 from the character of their food, which consists largely of snakes and other 

 reptiles. They are more sedentary and arboreal in their habits than their 

 relatives, and are less often seen on the wing, preferring to watch from some 

 vantage point for their prey. Of the fifteen species recognized, the Indian 

 Serpent Eagle (5. cheela), of the Himalayas and the Indian peninsula, is the 

 largest and perhaps best known. In this the male is about twenty-eight inches 

 and the female thirty inches long. The upper parts are dark brown with 

 a rich purple or ruddy gloss, the crown and the crest black, the basal half of the 

 feathers being white, while the lower parts are brown of various shades, more 

 or less spotted and barred. The smaller wing-coverts are blackish with small 

 white spots; the tail is also blackish, mottled with whitish and crossed by brown 

 bars. This bird, according to Blanford, is " usually found on trees near water, 

 especially the trees along irrigation channels and canals in upper India, .and 

 along stream-beds in the lower Himalayas and in the central provinces and 

 southern India." It may be known by the strongly marked bars on the wings 

 and tail and above all by its loud, plaintive cry. The nest is built in trees, and 

 on the shallow lining of green leaves one, or at most two, eggs are laid, these 

 being more or less streaked and spotted with brownish red and purple. This 

 species, besides feeding on snakes, frogs, and lizards, sometimes captures small 

 mammals, birds, and large insects. Intimately related to this are three or four 

 other species which have practically the same type of coloration but differ in 

 size, and there is a single species that has the abdomen barred instead of spotted, 

 thus departing from the typical color pattern of the genus. Quite a number 

 of species are confined to single, often small, islands. 



Bateleur Eagle. Markedly different in general appearance and colora- 

 tion, and perhaps not correctly referred to this subfamily, is the striking and 

 handsome Bateleur Eagle (Helotarsus ecaudatus] of Africa below the Sahara. 

 It is a small eagle, the male being about twenty-one and the female twenty-five 

 inches in length, and is remarkable among other things for the relatively long 

 and pointed wings and the extreme shortness of the tail, this being shorter by 

 more than the length of the tarsus than the wings, which, combined with the 

 large, very much crested head, give it a peculiar " dumpy " appearance. The 



