THE RING-TAILED x\ND GOLDEN EAGLES. 44? 
of the Golden Eagle, the former stretching as far as Hud- 
son"'s Bay in Lat. 64° or 65°, the latter being confined within 
the 56th or 57th degree *. 
On the whole, I still feel inclined to recur to the question 
which I formerly put, while treating of this contested point : 
If the birds in question were specifically the same, and sup- 
posing the white band to be merely the colour of immatu- 
rity, would not the individuals in the more advanced state 
of plumage approximate more nearly to the adult bird, so 
that by degrees all distinctions must be effaced, and they 
could not be recognised but as one and the same ? Where- 
as, on the contrary, we find that tlie more perfect the 
plumage of the bird becomes, the more apparent are those 
characters which have hitherto entitled it to rank as a dis- 
tinct species, and that it is chiefly between the young of 
the two species that there is any difiiculty in discriminating. 
In corroboration of this, I may mention the specimens in 
the possession of the Duke of Buccleugh, one of which, it 
may be in the recollection of some here present, I formerly 
exhibited to the Society. Its plumage is of a deep clear 
brown, like dark mahogany ; and its whole aspect, both in 
respect to colour and condition, indicates a bird in what 
* The Ring-tailed Eagle occurs in Northern Europe, at least as far as 
Drontheim. According to Pallas, it also inhabits the highest rocks of the 
Uralian Chain, where these ai'e free from wood. The independent Tartars 
train it for the chace of hares, foxes, antelopes, and even wolves. This noble 
amusement was observed by that curious traveller Marco Polo, while at 
the court of the Great Cham of Tartary, so far back as the year 1269. The 
Tartars esteem the feathers of the tail as the best they have for pluming their 
arrows. Pennant, in describiug a northern specimen of this bird, observes, 
" The tail is white, tipt with black ; but in young birds dusky, blotched with 
white.^* I have not been able to trace the Golden Eagle to any of the above 
mentioned countries. See Leems, p. 233; M. Polo, in Purchas's Collec- 
tion, t. iii. p. 85; and Pennant's Arctic Zoology, vol. ii. p. 195. 
G g S 
