AQUILINiE. 79 



irrigated districts. It extends into Assam and Burniali. It 

 usually watches for its prey from a high tree, or sails slowly over 

 the fields and woods. It lives chiefly on snakes, also on lizards, 

 rats, large insects, and frogs, xlccording to Mr. Blyth, it clutches 

 these last out of the mud of shallow tanks, and its toes are very 

 often covered with mud. It has a plaintive wild cry. It breeds 

 on trees, making its nest of sticks ; and lays two dirty white 

 eggs, with a few dark specks. 



Other species of Crested Serpent Eagles are S. Baclia of Daudin, 

 (F. bido, Horsf.,) from Java and Sumatra ; S. spilogaster, BL, from 

 Ceylon, and perhaps from S. India ; and S. liolospilas, Vigors, 

 from the Philippines. The first of them is figured by Levaillant, Ois. 

 d'Afrique, pi. 15, and was long thought to be African. But it 

 does not occur in any of the authentic lists of African birds, 

 though M. du Chaillu, the Gorilla-slayer, has it in his Fauna of 

 Equatorial Africa. M. Le Vaillant, indeed, gives a long account 

 of its habits, asserting it to be a great killer of the cape conies, 

 ( Hyrax capensisj and even syllabizes its cry; but I fear alas! 

 that this does not prove its authenticity as an African bird any 

 more than du Chaillu's insertion of it in the list of birds obtained 

 by him. V. 'Ibis'voL 2, for a critique on Le Vaillant's Birds 

 of Africa. 



» 

 5th. — Sea Eagles, or Fishing Eagles. 



Gen. Pandton, Savigny. 



Char. — Bill short, curved from the cere, rounded above, tip 

 produced, and much hooked, margin of upper mandible sinuated ; 

 nostrils small, narrow, obliquely transverse ; wings long, reachino- 

 beyond the end of tail, 2nd quill longest, or 2nd and 3rd nearly 

 equal ; tail moderate, nearly even ; the ta,rsus moderate, entirely 

 covered with reticulated scales ; toes quite free, outer toe versatile, 

 longer than the inner toe ; claws large, much curved, rounded 

 below, nearly of equal size ; soles of the feet covered with sharp- 

 pointed scales. 



The Ospreys differ structurally from other Eagles in the ster- 

 num narrowing somewhat posteriorly, and being slightly notched; 



