302 Catalogue of Nepdlese Birds. [No. 136. 



cription of this fine species was drawn up from a single specimen, 

 being the only one that he had then obtained, it is quite necessary to 

 describe it anew, in its different phases. 



Length of an adult male twenty-seven inches, by sixty inches in spread 

 of wing (Hodgson) ; of a female, eighteen inches (Elliot). The closed 

 wing, in a series of seven specimens before me, varies from seventeen 

 inches and a half to twenty inches and a quarter, and the tail from 

 eleven inches to twelve inches and a half ; but the greater number 

 approach to the respective former of these dimensions : from point 

 of upper mandible to gape measures about two inches, more 

 or less; tarse about three inches and a half: the talons large and 

 formidable. 



This bird approaches somewhat in form to the true Aquilce, and 

 is distinguished from its congeners by the absence of all trace of the 

 usual occipital crest. Adults deep aquiline-brown above, the some- 

 what lanceolated feathers about the nape laterally margined with 

 whitish, or, in some, with pale brown : tail more or less greyish, and 

 crossed with about seven narrow dark bars, in addition to the subter- 

 minal one which varies much in breadth: under-parts pure white, 

 with a narrow dark brown mesial streak to each feather; the tibial 

 plumes chiefly deep brown, freckled with whitish ; and the under- 

 coverts of the wings dark brown. Bill plumbeous, its tip and the 

 talons black ; cere and toes pale waxy-yellow ; irides bright yellow. 

 The mesial stripes on the feathers of the under-parts incline to be 

 broader in the female, and are more developed on the belly, where in 

 some the dark brown colour predominates, spreading in bars over the 

 feathers ; under tail-coverts also more or less distinctly banded : some 

 specimens shew the white bases of the feathers very conspicuously 

 about the nape: the inner webs of the tail-feathers are prettily mot- 

 tled, more especially in adults, as also those of the primaries anterior 

 to their emargination ; underneath, the tail is albescent, and its bars 

 are more or less obliterated, with the exception of the terminal one 

 when broad. The young have the lower parts deeply stained with 

 ferruginous (more or less so), and the mesial stripes to the feathers 

 narrow and inconspicuous, scarcely occupying more than their shafts ; 

 tibial plumes the same, though in some there are traces of the marking 

 on those of the adult; and the fore-part of the under-surface of the 



