CROWNED EAGLE 51 



CROWNED EAGLE 



Harpyhaliaetus cormatm 



Above ashy brown, with a long crest of darker feathers ; wings 

 grey with blackish tips ; tail black with a broad white median band 

 and white tip ; beneath pale ashy brown ; length 33, wing 99 inches. 

 Female similar but larger. 



I MET with this fine Eagle on the Rio Negro, in 

 Patagonia, where d'Orbigny also found it ; the 

 entire Argentine territory comes, however, within 

 its range. Having merely seen it perched on the tall 

 willows fringing the Rio Negro, or soaring in wide 

 circles far up in the sky, I cannot venture to speak 

 of its habits, while the account of them which 

 d'Orbigny built up is not worth quoting, for he does 

 not say how he got his information. One of his 

 statements would, if true, be very important indeed. 

 He says that his attention was drawn to a very curious 

 fact concerning the Crowned Harpy, which was, that 

 this bird preys chiefly on the skunk — ^an animal, he 

 very truly adds, with so pestilential an odour that 

 even the most carnivorous of mammals are put to 

 flight by it; that it is the only bird of prey that 

 kills the skunk, and that it does so by precipitating 

 itself from a vast height upon its quarry, which it 

 then quickly despatches. It would not matter at 

 all whether the Eagle dropped from a great or a 

 moderate height, for in either case the skunk would 

 receive its enemy with the usual pestilent discharge. 

 D*Orbigny*s account is, however, pure conjecture. 



