338 BIRDS OCCURRING IN INDIA NOT DESCRIBED 



27 bis.— Aquila nipalensis, Rodgs. 



Dimensions much as in A. mogilnik. 



This species also has two very distinct stages of plumage. 



First ; the leading character of this first stage is to have two 

 conspicuous white, or fulvous white, wing bands ; the whole of 

 the head, neck, chin, throat, back, lesser scapulars, lesser wing- 

 coverts, breast, abdomen, sides, leg feathers, axillaries, wing- 

 lining, except the greater lower wing-coverts, are a nearly uni- 

 form brown; the upper tail-coverts are clear, slightly yellow- 

 ish white ; the tail dark brown, more or less conspicuously tip- 

 ped with fulvous white, and with or without narrow, trans- 

 verse, irregular, grey bands ; the quills and greater wing- 

 coverts are dark brown, the latter with the secondaries and 

 tertiaries broadly tipped with fulvous white ; the greater lower 

 wing-coverts are pure white, or white mingled with brown, 

 slightly darker than the rest of the wing-lining. 



The specimens in this stage vary greatly in the prevailing 

 shade of brown ; some are very pale, almost whity brown, others 

 moderately pale hair brown ; some are entirely destitute of bars 

 on the tail, others exhibit them conspicuously ; and in the 

 specimens before me the very lightest bird, and one of the 

 darkest, have no bars whatsoever on the tail ; the lower tail- 

 coverts, in almost all the specimens, are white, or slightly ful- 

 vous white ; but in one specimen they are mottled with the 

 same brown as the rest of the lower parts. 



In some, the pale tippings to the tail feathers are obsolete, 

 in others, conspicuous; the lesser and median lower wing- 

 coverts, in one or two specimens, are narrowly tipped with 

 white ; generally they are of the same uniform brown, as the 

 breast, abdomen, etc. In both these forms, the lower surface 

 of the primaries are but faintly mottled with greyish white. 



Some specimens again are met with, changing to the next 

 form ; in these the wing bands have nearly disappeared ; the 

 tail feathers show the irregular, narrow bars more strongly 

 than in any of the others ; the whole of the crown is darker, the 

 pale tipping of the tail is almost obsolete ; many of the median 

 lower wing-coverts are rufous buff, and the longer scapulars, 

 and a few of the feathers of the back, are a deep chocolate 

 bi'own. 



The second stage is characteristically of a dark hair, or even 

 at times umber brown, darkest above, and chocolate brown 

 on the scapulars, with no pale bands on the wings or tips to 

 the tail feathers, and with numerous narrow, transverse, irregu- 

 lar grey bars on the latter; and with much brown mingled with 

 the lower tail-coverts. 



