18-72.] MR. H. K. URICSSER ON SPECIES OF AQUILA. 865 



Central Europe, ranging during the winter season down into Northern 

 Africa. To the eastward it is replaced by Aquila orientalis. 



" Aquila hastata, Lesson, is as yet only known from India • and 

 until Messrs. W. E. Brooks and A. Anderson lately sent ove'r the 

 specimens now exhibited it was a bird scarcely "known in out- 

 European museums; and even now but little is known about its 

 range. The six birds now exhibited are in different stages of 

 plumage, from the peculiarly spotted and striated young dress, in 

 which it widely differs from our Aquila ncevia, to the fully adult 

 plumage, in which it cannot be distinguished from our European 

 Spotted Eagle. It is the bird figured by Gray and Hardwicke as 

 Aquila fusca ; and if, as is strongly suspected, the bird described by 

 Lesson as Morphnus hastatus, prove not to be this bird, it will 

 have to stand as Aq. fusca, Gr. I may mention that Mr, J. H. 

 Gurney is at present carefully investigating this question. 



"Aquila ncevioides, Cuv. (Tawny Eagle), has only quite lately been 

 discovered to inhabit India ; and Mr. Brooks has" sent over several 

 specimens, two of which I have had the opportunity of examining and 

 comparing with Abyssinian and South-African examples. It is com- 

 mon in Abyssinia and South Africa, and has at least on one occasion 

 been observed and procured in Spain. One of the specimens which I 

 now exhibit is a Spanish bird, from the collection of Lord Lilford. 

 Aquila fulvescens of Gray and Hardwicke is the same bird. 



"Aquila vindhiana, Frankl., is the Aquila fulvescens of Jerdon 



and other Indian authors, and is probably also the Aquila albicans, 



iiupp. It ranges from India westward into Abyssinia, where it is 



found together with Aquila ncevioides, which is the so-called Aquila 



fulvescens figured by Gray and Hardwicke. 



'^Thus I may briefly summarize the results as follows :-— Of Im- 

 perial Eagles there are three good species, Aquila bifasciata, Gray, 

 Aq. mogilnik, Gm., and Aq. adalberti, Br. ; of Spotted Eagles there 

 are two species in Europe, Aquila ncevia, Gmelin, and Aquila 

 orientalis, Cab., and two, Aquila vittata, Hodgs., and Aquila hastata, 

 Less., in India; and of Tawny Eagles two, Aquila vindhiana, 

 Frankl., and Aquila ncevioides, Cuv., common to both the east and 

 west, being found in India as well as Africa, and the latter as a 

 straggler to Europe. It will thus be seen that Mr. Brooks is 

 correct in his views as to the distinctness of Aq. bifasciata from Aq. 

 mogilnik, the latter being called by him Aq. crassipes (P. Z. S. 18/2, 

 p. 502)— and that he was misled as to the Indian Imperial Eagle 

 not occurring in Europe, only owing to his having compared the 

 Spanish bird with the Indian species." 



Professor Owen, F.R.S., read the fourth of a series of memoirs on 

 the osteology of the Marsupialia. The present communication treated 

 of the bones of the trunk and limbs of the Wombats (Phascolomys), 

 the skull having been spoken of in a previous paper on the same 

 subject (the third of the series). 



This paper will be printed entire in the Society's 'Transactions.' 



Proc. Zool. Soc 1872, No. LV. 



