OF NORTH-EASTERN CACHAR. 9 



A well marked female of this species, and a young bird 

 which may belong- to this or the next species. 



23 ter— Micronisus poliopsis, Hume. 



a This Hawk is perhaps more generally met with than any 

 other ; it breeds during March and April. — J. I." 



A male of this species, identical with one of the Thayet 

 Myo birds. It would appear that the line of junction of these 

 two species or races is somewhere in this the Cachar District. 



34.— Spizaetus caligatus, Baffl. 



" This Hawk Eagle is rare here, in 4 years I have only seen 

 one which I managed to kill when she was in the act of carry- 

 ing off a fowl from the Morghee khanna. — J. I." 



A fine female with a tarsus over 4* ; mid toe and claw also 

 rather more than 4*; and wing 17. 



Mr. Sharpe obviously considers that the adult is always deep 

 chocolate brown above and below ; but this is not, I think, the 

 case, at any rate with the race that we in India identify as cali- 

 gatus. I have now seen a great number of specimens old and 

 young, and have a large series in our museum, but we possess 

 only one single Indian-killed specimen in the black plumage (ob- 

 tained near Dacca) and I have only seen one such other, and this 

 although I have certainly seen above fifty Indian-killed adults. 

 From their extreme rarity in India, I should have been 

 inclined to consider these black birds mere melanisims, did 

 I not know that further south and east they are more common. 

 Here in India the normal adult is dark brown above, but pure 

 white below, with a very conspicuous and broad central 

 throat streak, and with blackish shaft streaks to most of the 

 rest of the feathers of the throat ; every feather of the breast 

 and upper abdomen has a very broad, dark hair-brown shaft 

 stripe extending upwards from the tip for about an inch. 

 The flanks are much mottled with brown and the lower tail 

 coverts are a rather lighter brown narrowly barred, or, when 

 the bars have become obsolete, spotted with white. 



37.— Spizaetus Kienerii, Gerv. 



i( I was lucky enough to secure the only specimen of this 

 handsome bird that I have ever met with ; I got it while on a 

 fishing excursion on the Cheerie close to the Cacharee Degoon 

 Ponjee, at an elevation of 2,000 feet. I cannot give you much 

 information about it or its measurements. I found it perched 

 on a very tall tree overhanging a precipice in the act of de- 

 vouring something, but what it was I cannot tell, as it fell 

 over the rock ; the bird Avould also have followed suit had he 



