POLIOAETtJS. 167 



exceptions. The colour is greyish white ; and every specimen that 

 I have yet seen (and some fifty have passed through my hands) 

 has been absolutely unspotted. No doubt, as incubation proceeds, 

 like most other Eagles' eggs, they become much soiled and stained 

 with dingy yellow ; but none have exhibited any trace of the 

 markings shown in Dr. Bree's figures. 



The eggs of this species can, I think, generally be separated 

 -from those of most of our other Indian Eagles, except those of 

 Polioaetus ichthyaetus and Spisaetus iiepalends, by the intensely dark 

 green of the shell when held against the light. " If it is possible to 

 separate any of our Eagles' eggs by the texture, I should say that, 

 as a rule, there is generally a certain smoothness in the feel of 

 these eggs which distinguishes them from those of other species ; 

 but this is by no means an invariable test. 



The eggs vary from 2-55 to 3 inches in length, and from 2-02 to 

 2'27 in breadth ; but the average of thirty eggs measured was 2-77 

 by 2-17 inches. 



Polioaetus ichthyaetus (Horsf.). The Bar-tailed Fishing- 

 Eagle. 



Polioaetus ichthyaetus {Hodgs.), Jerd. B. Ind. i, p. 81 ; Hume, Rough 

 Draft N. 8f E. no. 41. 



I have myself never yet seen an Indian specimen of the Bar- 

 tailed Fishing-Eagle from any locality westward of Nepal, though 

 I have it from Sikhim, Bengal, and Burma. It is the next, and 

 not the present, species which is so common along the bases of 

 the Himalayas, from Kumaon to Afghanistan. Dr. Jerdon had 

 never clearly discriminated the next species, but be noticed its 

 distinctness from the present one directly I showed him a specimen ; 

 so that, I think, we may accept his remarks as to the breeding of this 

 species as really referring to the present and not the next species. 



He says : — " I found its nest on several occasions : once near 

 the Nerbudda in a large tree ; again, near Saugor, on a tree on the 

 top of a height overlooking a large tank ; and in a tree on the 

 skirts of a village near the Ganges, opposite Eajmahal, I found a 

 whole colony of nests of this Eagle. The nest is a very large 

 structure of sticks. In one nest there were unfledged young ; the 

 others were empty." 



Mr. J. E. Cripps writes: — "On the 12th March I saw one of 

 these birds sitting near a couple of nests which were high up on a 

 kuddum-tree in a ryot's holding, and overlooking a large ' beel.' 

 The ryot told me the young had flown by the beginning of 

 February, and that the eggs are laid in the latter end of November. 

 On my asking if the two nests belonged to two pairs, he said no ; 

 but that while one bird sat ou the egg in one nest, the other bird 

 occupied the empty nest. It is a permanent resident and rather 

 common." 



Major C. T. Bingham, writing of this bird in Tenasserim, 



