51? BIRDS OCCURRING IN INDIA NOT DESCRIBED 



.Mountain Hawk-Eagle of Ceylon, I find that certain charac- 

 teristics, differing from those presented by the Ceylonese birds, 

 are constant in the Indian form. Fully adult birds from Nepal 

 are nearly always exceedingly dark on the head, and have the 

 whole of the centre of the chin and gorge occupied by a very 

 broad black stripe, having between it and the equally black 

 cheeks a space narrower than itself; the colouration of the 

 chest likewise is very dark, from youth to the adult stage, and 

 more examples have a plain brown feather than one with un- 

 dulations of white at the lateral margins. The distinctive 

 character of the under suface, as compared with that of the 

 Ceylonese form, consists in the white bars on the breast, flanks, 

 and belly being, in all cases, more or less interrupted at the 

 shaft by the brown hue of the rest of the feather, which division 

 varies from an exceedingly fine margin on each side of the 

 dark shaft, to a broad space equal, even in adults, to about three- 

 tenths of an inch. The bars are, moreover, irregular, and in many 

 instances do not exactly oppose one another, while in others 

 they take the form of mere bar-like spots, not reaching to the 

 Bhaft or margin of the web ; the brown hue of the feather is 

 uniform throughout, being no darker at the margin of the 

 white band than elsewhere. In contradistinction to these 

 features, the Ceylon bird is marked from the chest down- 

 wards with broad complete, parallel-edged, white bands, with 

 which the shaft is concolorous ; in addition to which the brown 

 portion of the feather is not uniform, but has a darker margin 

 bordering the bands. The complete band exists in a young bird 

 from Haputale in the Norwich Museum, although the only 

 feathers which are barred at all are a few at the sides of the breast ; 

 the bars, in adults, are continued higher up the breast than in 

 any Indian specimens I have seen, and the chest feathers are very 

 deeply indented with white at the margins, with the brown 

 portions paler than those of the pectoral barred feathers. A 

 further distinctive point in the Ceylonese bird is the large foot, 

 with its gigantic claws, that of the inner toe being equal to 

 the average hind claw in most Nepal specimens. 



In eleven adults from the Himalayas, the hind claw measured 

 etraight from base above to tip, varied from 1*65 to 1*9 ; while 

 in two adults from Ceylon it was 2*1 and 2*05 — Legge, t( Ibis", 

 1878, 201. 



39 his A t — Spilornis spilogaster, Blyth. 



The Indian species of this genus, of which at present we 

 reckon at least seven, will need careful re-consideration. I must 



