SHORT-TOED EAGLE. 113 
I saw one strike at a wounded hare, and another make a swoop at 
a teal that was shot. From Mr. Elliot's 'Notes' I take the following: 
— ' Pounces on snakes and guanas; my Meer Shikar has seen them on 
the ground with their claws on the snake's head, its body coiled round 
the bird's wings, in which state the herd-boys sometimes kill them. 
The Yerklees say it has a figure of the god Chukram under each 
wing, by which it prevents the snake going forward. In the stomach 
of one I found a snake about two feet long, and a centipede.'" 
Of its habits in Europe the best summary with which I am acquainted 
is in Degland's " Ornithologie Europeenne," which I will give in his 
own words: — 
"Le Jean-le-Blanc lives in the borders of woods, frequenting the 
underwood. In its manner and carriage it is very like the Common 
Buzzard, and equally indolent. M. Gerbe saw one attacked by Magpies, 
but the Eagle remained totally unmoved. In winter, according to M. 
Bouteille, it lingers near the dwellings of man, on the look-out for 
poultry, which in this season is its principal food. In the summer and 
autumn it frequents marshes, and then feeds upon field-mice and 
lizards. 
M. Tyzenhauz does not agree upon this subject with our friend, for, 
according to him, the Jean-le-Blanc does not hunt small animals, but 
grouse, partridges, hares, and barn-door fowls are its favourite prey. 
If sometimes reptiles have been found in its stomach, it was, according 
to this naturalist, in consequence of its being forced by hunger to feed 
upon them. Notwithstanding this assertion, it is, however, certain that 
it attacks small vertebrate animals, and even insects. M. Gerbe, at 
two different times, found their stomachs filled with the elytra of 
beetles." Mr. Gurney informs me that a friend of his found a snake 
about three feet long, which had been swallowed whole, in the crop 
of a Short-toed Eagle near Rome. 
The Short-toed Eagle nests not only upon high trees, but according 
to M. Bouteille, in brushwood and coppices, in which opinion he is 
corroborated by M. R,oux, who says that it builds " sometimes in high 
trees, and sometimes very near the ground." M. Tyzenhauz says that 
it builds only on high trees in old forests, and never on the ground. 
M. Moquin-Tandon says in a private letter — "Dr. Alexander 
Savatier wrote to me from Beauvais-sur-Matha, (Charente-inferieure.) 
e l have killed on its nest, in a forest in our neighbourhood, a female 
of Jean-le-Blanc. This nest was placed upon a very high tree; it 
was sixty or seventy centimetres in diameter; it was composed of dry 
twigs; it only contained one egg, half sat upon. It was May 16th. 
The shell was a dirty white, and rugose. Great diameter eight cents., 
VOL. I. Q 
