POLIOAETITS ICHTHYAETUS. 75 



during the night, breaks in with startling effect on the stillness of the forest. It is repeated three or four times, 

 and somewhat resembles the monosyllables koow, koow. I have not noticed this peculiar cry referred to by 

 Indian writers; and as regards the Javan bird, Horsfield says, in his 'Zoological Researches/ that its cry is like 

 that of the Osprey. The same author confirms my experience of its timid nature, relating that a male bird 

 " on being caught in a snare permitted itself to be seized by the native without making any resistance. When 

 brought to me lying in the arms of the native, apparently conscious of its situation, and without making use 

 of its claws or bill, or exerting any efforts to extricate itself, it suffered itself to be handled and examined 

 very patiently.'" 



In confinement this Eagle thrives well, and is a very docile and quaint bird in its habits. A young one 

 which I reared soon learnt to recognize the person who fed it, and would swallow fish 6 inches in length as 

 fast as they were thrown to it, quickly filling out its crop, and working it, by a muscular effort, to and fro, so 

 as to pass the food into its stomach. It was kept in the same aviary as the Crested Eagle now in the Zoolo- 

 gical Gardens, and would, long after it was fully plumaged, sidle up to it, crouch down, chuckling with a low 

 note, as it would do to its parent. As it grew old, it became the noisiest bird I ever had any thing to do with, 

 continually "cawing" for its food, notwithstanding that it was plied with raw meat, lizards, and fish to an 

 alarming extent, and was almost as ravenous a feeder as a Pelican Ibis, if any bird could be found to equal 

 the latter in point of appetite. Up to the age of six months, when he, to my great regret, fell a victim to an 

 accident, he very seldom gave vent to the loud call of the wild bird, his note in confinement being a harsh 

 clanking cry. 



Nidificatioii. — This Eagle breeds in December and January, building a huge nest of sticks in large trees 

 near the water's edge. If the structure is fixed in a deep fork or awkward situation on the limbs of the tree, 

 the foundation is heaped up until sufficient breadth is attained for the platform, and the result is a fabric of 

 enormous size. I have never obtained the eggs ; but a nest which I visited in 1873 contained one nestling, 

 the tame bird above described, and it may therefore be premised that the bird lays two eggs, the other, in this 

 instance, having been addled. The interior of this nest, which was entirely made of good-sized sticks, was flat, 

 and contained no lining or preparation for the repose of the eaglet, which, on my appearing at the edge of its 

 domicile, stood up and placed itself in an attitude of defence, its cowardly parents flying off and seating them- 

 selves on distant trees. As to the eggs they are, in all probability, white and unspotted, and about the size of 

 those of Pol. plumbeus, its Himalayan congener, which vary, according to Mr. Hume, " from 2 - 72 to 2 - 8 inches 

 in length, and from 2 - l to 215 in breadth." 



I have never seen more than one nest belonging to this Eagle in the same locality ; but occasionally it 

 appears they congregate together in the same manner that the Grey-backed Sea-Eagle does — an abnormal 

 habit, arising no doubt from the force of circumstances. Jerdon mentions having found a whole colony of the 

 nests of this Eagle in a single tree on the skirts of a village near the Ganges. 



