154



Mr. E. C. Stuart Baker,



SOME NOTES ON

TAME SERPENT EAGLES.


Spilorms cheela.


By E. C. Stuart Baker.


In the last article I had the pleasure of writing for our

magazine, I gave an account of one of the smallest but at the same

time fiercest of our Indian raptores ; in the present article I deal

with one of the largest and at the same time most easily tamed of

the same family.


The two birds whose life with me I am about to describe

were brought to me as nestlings ; yellowish-white fluffy youngsters

with pale yellow eyes, pale lead-coloured feet and bill and a gape,

which gaped continually for food, matching the eyes in colour.


For a day or two after they were taken from the nest they

displayed all the ferocity of their kind and though they readily

accepted food, struck savagely at the hand which gave it, not with

their bills as one would have expected, but with their feet. Very

shortly, however, they became quite reconciled to me and from

thenceforward I had no further difficulty with them ; they soon

began to recognise me when I approached their basket with food,

and hailed each visit with loud and harsh squawks of welcome.

Their usual attitude in the basket, which took the place of their

nest, was squatting well back on their haunches, a position which

made them look as if they were on the point of falling backward.

In this posture they always received their food and when they first

came, struck out with one leg without losing their balance. When

replete, however, they lay down full length with their heads and

necks stretched out in front of them, their legs either both tucked

under their bodies or one stuck out and grasping one of the small

branches with which the basket w^as lined. In this position they

lay asleep or dozing hut it was a light foot which could approach

within five yards of them without putting them on the qui vive.

They grew with extraordinary rapidity and within a month of coming

into my possession were almost fully fledged, though it was more

than another month before the quills of their wings and tails had

attained their full size.



