1882. ] DR. W. BLASIUS ON BIRDS FROM CERAM. 699 
other, coming from Gorontalo on the island of Celebes, to the kind- 
ness of Mr. G. Schneider, of Basle. 
The following table will show the difference :— 
Rostri 
Long. tot. Al. Caud. culm.  Tars, 
em. cm, cm, cm, cm. 
Salvadori, minimum 70:0 54°5 22°5 5:2 9:0 
x maximum 80:0 57°5 25°5 5°5 9°5 
Moluceas, ad. .... 68°0 56°5 23°5 5:2 9:0 
Celebes, ad. ...... 61:5 55°5 24:0 5:0 9:0 
Ceram, juv.. ¢ .s.« 72°5 55°5 31°5 4:7 9°3 
(In the Catalogue Birds Brit. Mus. vol. i., Sharpe also states the 
length of the tail as much less—for the male ad. 9°5 inches =24'2 em., 
and for the female ad. 11 inches=28°1 em.) 
At first I believed, on account of these widely differing proportions, 
and particularly on account of the much longer tail, that I had before 
me another species of the group of Haliaetus. But this supposition 
is contradicted by the fact that, till now, no other species has been 
found in the region of the Moluccas, and that this very same species 
has been found by Hoedt on the island of Ceram (Schlegel, Mus. 
Pays-Bas), and observed by Rosenberg (Malayischer Arch. p. 322) 
near the mouth of the Bobot river. 
Besides, the feathering of the leg (only in front on the upper third 
of the tarsus), the formation of the scales (in front a row of very 
broad plates descending nearly to the root of the toes), and the 
formation of the claws are exactly the same as in the old specimens 
mentioned above. Of the other species of Haliaetus very well repre- 
sented in the Brunswick Museum, the longer-tailed H. leucoryphus 
(Pall.) approaches the nearest in size and formation of bill and legs. 
But our specimen from Ceram differs from it, apart from the different 
colouring, in the wider and deeper descending scales of the tarsus, 
and in the smaller development of the hind claw. I propose there- 
fore to classify the bird for the present as C. Jeucogaster, and suppose 
that this species has when young a considerably longer tail than when 
old, and that the average measurements of Salvadori have been taken 
exclusively from old individuals. With this opinion coincide more or 
less the opinions of Mr. E. F. von Homeyer of Stolp, of Dr. Alph. 
Dubois of Brussels, of Dr. Rud. Blasius of Brunswick, and of Mr. Henry 
Seebohm of London, the first three of whom have at my request seen 
and compared the bird with H. lewcoryphus, and distinctly stated the 
difference. I also owe to the just named gentlemen (principally to 
Mr. H. Seebohm) on this occasion some precise communications about 
the variability of the length of tail in the large birds of prey in 
general, and about the often surprisingly greater dimensions of the 
plumage of the young individuals of Accipitres in comparison with the 
old ones, which have essentially confirmed me in classifying the 
present specimen as H. leucogaster. 
The specimen is in the Brunswick Museum. 
