HALIAETUS LEUCOGASTEE. 71 



of life these reptiles are), and had its head and neck pierced through in several places by the Eagle's cruel 

 claws, its whole skull being completely crushed up." 



Messrs. Hume and Ball both allude to the shy disposition of this Eagle. The former says that at the 

 Andamans it is exceedingly difficult to procure; and in writing of it as an inhabitant of Chota Nagpur, 

 Mr. Ball remarks that it is extremely wary and difficult to approach. In Ceylon it is certainly when perched 

 a shier bird than P. ichthyaetus ; but it will frequently fly close overhead, and then affords an easy shot. 



Instances have been likewise known in Ceylon of its having carried off wounded birds. Captain Wade 

 writes me that he saw one in the Yala district take away a fallen Duck ; and Mr. Bligh relates to me a similar 

 case in which another of these Eagles pounced on a Stone-Plover (Esacus recurvirostris) which had been fired 

 at and had fallen in the surf. The robber turned inland with his booty, and flying over the sportsman's head 

 dropped it, on being fired at, almost at his feet. 



Nidification. — In Ceylon this species breeds during the months of December, January, and February. It 

 selects for its eyrie an enormous banyan or other tree with stout limbs and taller than the surrounding forest, 

 and there builds a huge nest, sometimes 5 or 6 feet in diameter, and often, to secure a firm foundation, as many 

 deep. The interior is almost flat, and contains a bed of green leaves, in which the eggs are laid, and with 

 which the bird hurriedly but skilfully covers them on leaving or being frightened from the nest. This lining 

 is removed when the young are hatched, and they repose on the twigs beneath. 



One of several eyries which I discovered in the neighbourhood of Trincomalie was visited on two successive 

 years ; and on the occasion of my second visit I found that the male bird, whose mate I had robbed him of, had 

 procured another, who was quite at home in her new quarters. The nest was at the top of the junction of an 

 enormous aerial root with the parent limb, and up which my coolie progressed at a great speed : the bird sat 

 very close, not stirring from the nest until the man was up to it ; while he was ascending the male brought a 

 huge fish to the nest, but on perceiving the intended robbery, flew off with it, leaving the hen still setting. 

 Both birds flew round the nest, swooping down near it and uttering their loud clanking notes ; but they did 

 not, as also on all other occasions in my experience, attempt to molest the man. Even when losing their young 

 these Eagles do not exhibit much courage, although they do not fly off, and calmly settle on a distant tree, as 

 I have seen Polioaetus ichthyaetus do. The eggs are nearly always two in number, but sometimes only one, as 

 I, on one occasion, took a single incubated egg from a nest. They are dull white and vary in shape, some 

 being very round, while others are long ovals or pointed at one end ; the shell is tolerably rough, and, in 

 general, much stained and soiled. They vary from 3 - 17 to 2'77 inches in length, by 2 - 18 to 2 - 02 in breadth. 



On Pigeon Island there is a large nesting-colony of these birds ; they breed in the lofty trees growing on 

 the island, as many as thirty or forty nests being placed in close proximity to each other. Their breeding- 

 time here, according to Jerdon, is during the months of December, January, and February, or the same as it is 

 in Ceylon. Concerning the nesting of the White-bellied Sea-Eagle in the Andamans and Nicobars, Mr. Davison 

 writes to Mr. Hume, " I found this bird nesting on Nancowry Island on the 8th of March; the nest was a 

 huge mass of sticks, placed between two great branches of a large tree, at an height of about 80 feet from the 



ground I could not climb the tree myself, and I could get no assistance from the Nicobarese ; they 



would not go near the nest ; and when I said I would have it taken without their assistance, they earnestly 

 begged me not to touch it, as doing so would be sure to bring fever into the village, and they would all die." 

 This strange idea of the Nicobarese evidently arises from their acquaintance with the incongruous mass of fish- 

 bones, snakes, skeletons, crab-shells, &c. which are always to be found beneath these great eyries, and which 

 are not always of the most odoriferous kind. 



Although this species breeds, as a rule, on lofty trees, it alters its habit according to the locality to which 

 it is obliged to confine itself. Mr. Gould, in writing of it as an Australian bird, says, " I could not fail to 

 remark how readily the birds accommodate themselves to the different circumstances in which they are placed ; 

 for while on the mainland they invariably construct their large flat nest on a fork of the most lofty trees, on 

 the islands, where not a tree is to be found, it is placed upon the flat surface of a large stone, the materials of 

 which it is formed being twigs and branches of the Barilla, a low shrub which is there plentiful." 



