76 ADALBERTS IMPERIAL EAGLE. 
specific plumage of Aquila Imperialis , or heliaca, as they propose to 
call it? Dr. Cullen's Tartar kills an Eagle on its nest, and the bird 
and eggs are sent to me. Mr. Dresser says the bird did not lay the 
eggs sent, and that the bird is a second year's young heliaca! If we 
send the tale farther eastward, Mr. Hume would say the bird was A. 
bifasciata!! and then Mr. Brooks would say, yes, but A. bifasciata 
is A. clanga, and therefore logically the bird taken by Dr. Cullen's 
Tartar was not the young of heliaca, but A. clanga, and the eggs 
sent with the bird, and which I figure, would back up Brooks's 
opinion 
Having shown proof of the above to Mr. Gurney, he kindly wrote 
to me, — "There is, I believe, no doubt that some of the Eagles which 
have acquired the ordinary adult plumage of A. heliaca in the Zoolo- 
gical Gardens, Regent's Park, were in striated plumage when first 
placed in the collection; the young plumage of A. bifasciata is not 
striated, less so in fact than even that of A. Adalberti" 
It is worthy of remark that at the meeting of German naturalists, 
when Brehm exhibited his "Aquila Adalberti" as a new species, 
Professor Blasius at once pronounced it to be " Aquila ncevioides," 
under which name it has hitherto been placed by ornithologists, until 
it is brought before the world to do duty until further notice as an 
independent Eagle, which is neither " Imperial" nor " ncevioides .'" 
In this unsettled state of things I shall not enter into controversy, 
but shall content myself with figuring the old and young of the Spanish 
form of Imperialis. 
The adult bird, a fine male, is from a skin kindly sent me by 
Lord Lilford, and the young birds are from two living specimens 
which his Lordship brought from Spain in 1872, from the nest, and 
kindly presented to me. Since then they have been under the kind 
protection of Lieutenant-Colonel Hawkins, of Alresford Hall, near 
Colchester, where they feasted on the best of rabbits. They are now 
in the possession of J. H. Gurney, Esq., at Northrepps, who writes, 
May 25th., 1874, "The two Spanish Eagles are looking very well; 
they are getting dark on the crown of the head; also on the quill 
feathers of the wing, and in the centre of the feathers of the great 
wing coverts." Mr. Gurney in the same letter says that he sees no 
reason why Aquila heliaca should not breed in immature plumage, 
considering how long they are about it. A female Aquila ncevioides 
in the Norwich Museum, which was shot off her nest containing eggs, 
"which has certainly not attained fully adult plumage." 
The following is a description of the old bird figured: — Length 
thirty-two inches and eight tenths; tail twelve inches; wings twenty- 
