464 Novelties. — Spilornis minimns. 



This tawny plumage is however only one stage of the bird^s 

 plumage ; and in the Ibis for April, 1865, is represented in the 

 upper figure the adult bird. 



Aquila fidvescens, Gray, the Indian tawny eagle, is very easily 

 distinguished from both the other species, which it somewhat 

 resembles, by its ver)/ ro'uncl noatril, plain black tail, and longer 

 and feebler legs. The bill is also feebler in propoi-tion. It is 

 also a migratory eagle, which the other two are not. In my 

 recent papers on the different eagles, my references to Aqcdla 

 ncevioides are to the Indian species, Aqtdla fidvescens. I did not 

 then know the other bird. 



Indian ornithologists should carefully note that Aquila ful- 

 vescens is quite a distinct bird from that described under the 

 same name by Dr. Jerdon, at page 60 of his first volume. This 

 species ( No. 39 in Dr. Jerdon^s book) must be altered to Aqtnla 

 vindliiana, Franklin. 



It has often been thought that A. vindJiiana was identical 

 with the African A. ncevioides ; hut it is not so. No two eagles 

 could be more truly distinct, though they are closely affined 

 and structurally alike. Each of the three eagles of which I have 

 spoken in this short paper, has a light and a darker stage ; but 

 while in Agtdla fidvescens and A. navioides the bufF stage is the 

 more youthful one ; in the third, the common wokhab, A. vin- 

 dJiiana, the pale stage is that of a full aged bird. The latter does 

 not appear to be regularly subject to this pale dress (which is a 

 pale whity brown without any of the warm buff of the other two 

 species,) but those birds which have not fast colored plumage 

 become bleached. 



The same bleaching is very observable in Aquila nm'ia and less 

 so is Aquila hastata and A. lifasciata. The species which fades 

 the least is Aq. mogilnih. 



l^Mte % 



Spilornis minimus, B^, Nov, 



JResemhles cheela, hut is inuch paler, lias the throat and breast entirely 

 unbarred. Is the smallest of its genus. Wings varying from 11'6 to 

 11-75. 



We only met with this diminutive species in the neighbour- 

 hood of Camorta (Nicobars), and^ unfortunately; only secured 



