BIRDS OF TENASSEKIM. 15 



exclusively reptile-loving species, rather than the open, where 

 reptiles are comparatively scarce, and which are continually 

 being hunted over by other birds of prey ; but naturally wary, 

 I imagine it is unwilling- to venture, even with the prospect 

 of a more abundant supply of food, iuto places where it would 

 be less able to keep a successful watch against danger, or if 

 surprised less able to escape quickly, than in the open. I got 

 quite close to all the three specimens, that I obtained actually 

 in the forest, before they were aware of my approach, and to 

 one did I approach so closely while it was discussing the re- 

 mains of a lizard that I had to let it fly some little distance 

 before I fired for fear of injuring it as a specimen. 



Although, however, they rarely enter the forest depths, they 

 frequent their neighbourhood. Very often in the dense forests of 

 the south there are hollows or little valleys, that in the rains are 

 shallow jheels, or rather marshes, overgrown with rank grass 

 and weeds, but which entirely dry up in the cold weather. The 

 forest, of course, entirely surrounds these openings growing 

 down to their very edges, leaving a space sometimes only forty 

 or fifty yards long by perhaps half that width, at others a quar- 

 ter of a mile long by a couple of hundred yards wide. These 

 places are very favorite resorts of the Harrier Eagle, and I have 

 hardly ever seen one of these places where one or more of 

 these eagles were not to be seen, either seated on some neigh- 

 bouring tree, or on a branch of some dead tree that had fallen 

 from the forest partially across the marsh, or circling over 

 head. 



I have occasionally also seen them along the banks of 

 streams, and I find I have a note of having shot one while 

 seated on a mud bank in the Pakchan river. 



Their cry, wild and querulous, is continually uttered both 

 when seated and flying, but especially so as the bird circles 

 high up overhead. It is quite characteristic of the genus 

 and that of the present bird does not differ, at any rate, ap- 

 preciably from that of Elgini, Davisoni, and the Malay, bird 

 (f pallidas) the only other species with whose habits and cry 

 I am acquainted. — "W. D.] 



The Harrier Eagle that I retain for the present under this 

 name differs from S. cheela, chiefly in its duller coloration and 

 smaller size ; whether it merits specific separation, may be 

 doubted. I shall deal hereafter separately with all the Indian, 

 Burmese, Malayan, Ceylonese, Andamanese and Nicobarese 

 races of this genus, and I shall not enter further into the ques- 

 tion at present. 



It is sufficient for my Indian readers to say that both old 

 and young so closely resemble cheela that they cannot mis- 

 take the bird and to give the dimensions recorded from a large 



