Notes upon Indian and Fturopean Eagles, Sfc 



J91 



This eagle is often quite as fine and robust as Aquila mogilnik, 

 but it is never black-brown, and never obtains white scapulars. 

 The general tone of color in mature examples is earth-brown, 

 or " soil brown/' according to Mr. Hodgson. His drawing 

 No. 934, perfectly represents the adult stage. By European 

 ornithologists it has been coiifounded with Aquila naevioides. 

 Captain Elwes, in the Ibis, 1870, page 67, calls it " the dark form 

 of the tawny eagle (A. naevioides, 1" and he has kindly forwarded 

 to me an example of which Mr. Grurney says, " notwithstanding 

 the remarkable difference of coloration in each of the three 

 specimens, they agree so closely in other respects that (greatly 

 ag-ainst my preconceived opinion) I am now disposed to look 

 upon them as all belonging to the same species, viz., Aquila 

 naevioides, of Cuvier. I moreover discovered in the eagle from 

 the Bosphorus, two small scapular feathers which I had pre- 

 viously overlooked. These confirm me in this opinion, as they 

 are parti-colored, a portion of the feather being purplish browix 

 and the other portion being rufous, which is an especially 

 characteristic form of coloration in the typical African adults 

 of A, naevioides. This, I think, shews that the Bosphorus 

 birds are not in adult dress ; and I may, with reference to my 

 former opinion that they belonged to a distinct species, add that 

 / never before saw any specimens of A. naevioides in the same 

 jolumage as these eagles obtained on the Bosphorus." Ibis, 1870, 

 pp. 67 and 68. V\\e italics are mine. Captain Elwes in conti- 

 nuation remarks, " M. AUeon also thinks that he has never 

 obtained an adult specimen out of the large nimiber he has seen, and 

 he has never met with any of a tawny color, &c.," vide Ibis, 

 1870, pp. 67 and 68. The italics again are mine. 



Here we have the anomaly of a large number of tawny 

 eagles not at all tawny, of a large number and not one adult 

 bird ! And Mr. Gui-ney says, he never saw examples of A. 

 naevioides like them, and that he had been inclined to consider 

 them as belonging to a distinct species. 



Having the very specimen, Mr. Grurney speaks of, with the 

 two little fulvous scapular feathers, I can very safely say it is a 

 mature male example of Aq%dla bifasciata, Gray and Hard : with 

 the characteristic buff occipital patch well developed. It has too, 

 the characteristic well barred grey tad of that species. Apart 

 however from plumage, the structural difference in the form of 

 the nostril is always sufficient to separate Aquila bifasciata from 

 Aquila tiaevioides. That of the former is long and vertical 

 almost, while that of the latter is the most circular of any eagles 

 with which I am acquainted. In dried skins, however, the 

 aostril is sometimes distorted. In the present instance Mr. 



