THE CRESTED SEEPENT-EAGLE. 
193 
streaked with dark brown ; there are five very dark bars on the tail^ the 
last one about one and a half inches broad, and all the feathers are tipped 
with white; the upper plumage and scapulars are dark glossy brown. 
''Adult. Above and below deep chocolate- brown, inclining to blackish 
on the head and back, the quills and tail blackish, the shafts of the latter 
brownish, the inner webs of the quills clear ashy ; tail-feathers below ashy 
white, brownish towards the tips, the penultimate ones with remains of 
irregular cross markings/^ (Sharpe.) 
Iris brown, turning to orange -yellow ; eyelids plumbeous ; mouth flesh- 
colour ; bill black, the gape bluish ; cere dark brown ; feet yellowish green 
to pale yellow ; claws black. 
Length 26 inches, tail 12, wing 15*5, tarsus 4*3, bill from gape 1'7. The 
female is larger. 
The above descriptions o£ the immature birds are taken from a series of 
specimens shot in Pegu ; the plumage of the adult, which appears to be 
less seldom met with, from Mr. Sharper's Catalogue. 
The Changeable Hawk Eagle is generally distributed over the whole of 
British Burmah, being more common in the northern part of Pegu than 
elsewhere. 
It extends through the Indo-Burmese countries into India, whe re it is 
found in Bengal and the Eastern Himalayas ; and it occurs in the Malay 
peninsula, Sumatra, Java and Borneo. 
This handsome bird frequents forests, especially those at the foot of 
mountain-ranges. It is very abundant in the valleys near Thayetmyo, 
where it breeds in April and May, making a nest of sticks near the top of 
a high tree. 
Genus SPILORNIS, Gray, 
568. SPILOENIS CHEELA. 
THE CHESTED SEHPENT-EAGLE. 
Falco cheela, Lath. Ind. Orn. i. p. 14. Hsematomis undulatus, Vigors, P. Z. S. 
1831, p. 170. Spilornis cheela, Jerd. B. Ind. i. p. 77 ; Hume, Rough Notes, i. 
p. 222 ; id. Nests and Eggs, p. 40 ; Sharpe, Cat. Birds B. Mas. i. p. 287 ; Humey 
S. F. iii. p. 28 ; Bl. B. Burm. p. 60; David et Oast. Ois. Chine, p. 21 ; Wardlaio 
Ramsay, Ibis, 1877, p. 454 ; Gurneg, Ibis, 1878, p. 89 ; Hume ^- Bav. S. F. vi. 
p. 14 ; Hume, S. F. viii. p. 82. Spilornis undulatus, Oates, S. F. x. p. 179. 
Description. — Male and female. Upper head and crest deep black; the 
bases of the feathers white and showing up conspicuously, the tips of 
some mottled with fulvous ; plumage above hair-bi^own ; the upper wing- 
VOL. II. O 
