ADALBERTS IMPERIAL EAGLE. 75 
RAPACES DlURNJE. 
FALCONID^l. 
Genus Aquila. (Brisson.) 
ADALBERT'S IMPERIAL EAGLE. 
Aquila Adalberti. 
Aquila Adalberti, Brehm. Dresser. 
" Imperialis, Of Authors. 
Specific Characters. — White feathers on the shoulders and edges of wing. 
In all respects save those mentioned in the above specific characters 
the adult bird of the present notice is exactly like that which I 
described last. 
In the young stage, however, it differs materially from the assumed 
young stage of Aquila Imperialis, and upon these grounds chiefly 
Mr. Dresser has assigned, the 'present bird's specific rank. These 
characters I have dealt with in the preliminary remarks which headed 
the notice of the last bird. I do not think the question is decided, 
for it appears to me that there is much confusion among naturalists 
as to what the young stage of A. Imperialis actually is. Mr. Hume 
says the second year's plumage of A. Imperialis is striated, but then 
he says it is exactly like the bird known as Aquila bifasciata, Hodgson, 
while Mr. Brooks says that A. bifasciata is an Eagle on its own 
account, and this is no other than the bird known in Europe as 
Aquila clanga, Pallas — A. orientalis, Cabanis. If a careful ornithologist 
like Mr. Hume, who is, moreover, one of the most zealous and hard- 
working naturalists of modern days, could with his hundreds of skins 
have been mistaken so egregiously as to note down page after page the 
plumage of a distinct species for the second year's plumage of another 
bird, then I ask why may not those naturalists be mistaken in affixing 
a striated plumage bird (the very same in fact which was mistaken by 
Hume for the plumage stage of the same bird,) as the second year's 
