1920.] South African Accipitres. 611 



beautiful. They arc very noisy birds, especially when 

 nesting, and I have often listened to their wild clanging 

 cry, Avhicli seemed to suit the surroundings. Their flight, 

 although strong, always appears rather heavy, and it 

 seemed to me wonderful that they were so successful in 

 fishinu', considering how clumsy their efforts appeared. 

 I have often watciied them beating about over the sea, 

 just outside the line of broken water on the bars at the 

 river mouths, then all of a sudden plunging with a heavy 

 splash into the water, usually to appear with a large fish in 

 their talons, which they Avould bear away to the nearest 

 convenient perch to devour. Sometimes the fish they catch 

 are so heavy that they have the greatest difficulty in 

 carrying them to the nearest bank. The natives often 

 chase them and make them drop the fish they have caught ; 

 and I once had to thank one for a fish of about 6 lbs. 

 weight, wliich came in very handy for breakfast. Like 

 Sea-Eagles the world over, they often rob the Ospreys of 

 their fish, and Livingstone also stated that they robbed the 

 Pelicans on the Zambezi, making them disgorge the fish 

 from their pouches. 



I have found two nests — in one case at the top of a very 

 high and quite unclimable dead tree, the top of which 

 appeared to have been blasted by lightning; the other in 

 one of the forks of a large wild fig-tree, a big mass of sticks 

 containing two white eggs. 



The change from juvenile to adult plumage appears to 

 be very gradual, and it no doubt takes some time to attain 

 the fully adult state. The head and neck appear to be the 

 first parts to show signs of the change, these parts and 

 the breast becoming whiter at each succeeding moult ; 

 but the broad blackish streaks that are very conspicuous 

 on the breast of the young bird appear to persist even 

 when the rest of the ])luuiage has almost assumed the adult 

 colouring. There are at present several living immature 

 birds in the Pretoria Zoological Gardens that show these 

 breast-streaks in varying degrees of clearness. 



