1843.] Catalogue of Nepdlese Birds. 305 



B. The wedge- tailed group, exemplified by H. leucogaster and H. 

 blagrus ; referred by Gould and since by myself to Icthyaetus, but, as 

 I now think, erroneously. 



C. The diminutive group with comparatively feeble talons, exempli- 

 fied by H. Pondicerianus (the Brahminee Cheele or Sunkur Cheele of 

 India), and the Australian H. leucostemus, Gould, P. Z. S. 1837, p. 138. 

 To this division Mr. Gould has since applied the term Haliastur. 



Ornithologists in this country should seek to obtain the Icthyaetus 

 nanus, which most probably will be found to occur. 



o. Spizaetus pulcher ;] Nisaetus pulcher, Hodgson, [mentioned in 

 J. A. S. VI, 361, and now regarded by him as typical of that group. 

 It devolves on me to furnish a description of this showy species, which 

 may readily be distinguished from its congeners by its longer and hand- 

 somely banded tail, whereon are five dark bars, as broad as or broader 

 than the interspaces of pale ground-tint, whereas in the other species 

 the dark caudal bars are much narrower than the intervening spaces. 

 The occipital crest is fully developed, measuring four inches in length. 

 Plumage of the upper-parts deep aquiline- brown, very dark on the 

 interscapularies, and verging upon black on the crown and occipital 

 crest, which is slightly tipped with whitish ; nuchal feathers conspicu- 

 ously margined with tawny-brown, and their pale basal colour more 

 or less shewing about the nape: under-parts whitish, more or less 

 deeply tinged with fulvous, and marked on the breast with longitudi- 

 nal broad mesial dark streaks to the feathers; the chin is blackish, 

 continued as a median line to the breast, and two similar lateral streaks, 

 at first very broad, proceed from the corners of the gape ; belly and 

 flanks more or less distinctly banded with brown and white, the latter 

 narrower, and the brown darker towards the white, — the belly especi- 

 ally having a confusedly mottled appearance, and the under tail-coverts 

 are similar; the lengthened tibial plumes are more distinctly banded, 

 and the tarsal less so, becoming whitish towards the toes : tail as des- 

 cribed, having five broad dark bands, with interspaces of a mottled 

 light brown, becoming greyish with age ; its larger upper coverts also 

 banded brown and white, the latter narrower : primaries and secon- 

 daries dark brown, banded with blackish ; their under surface and that 

 of the tail albescent, with the bars anterior to the emargination of the 



primaries, and those of the outermost tail-feathers, semi-obsolete. 



2 s 



