242 The Golden Eagle. 
{Aqicila chi ysa'eius). 
By C. H. Donald, F.Z.S. 
Though hardly a subject for au avicultural magazine, the 
" Raptores " generally seem to be so invariably left out in the 
cold and one sees so little of them and their ways, in popular 
magazines, that I make bold to think a short description of 
one of the grandest birds in existence will be of interest to 
many bird lovers, especially as the bird in question is so rare 
uow-a-days and one, in captivity, almost unheard of. 
India, a country well stocked with birds of prey, generally, 
can boast of some twenty-eight genera, comprising seventy-two 
species excluding the Vulhiridce. The Golden Eagle (^Aqtdla 
chrysa'eliis) though by no means rare, is somehow very little 
known, and the two species A. chiysa'eliis and A. heliaea, the 
Imperial Eagle, are frequently mistaken one for the other. 
In plumage there is certainly a great similarity between 
the two, but there the likeness ends. Whereas the Golden Eagle 
is a mighty hunter, the Imperial is nothing more or less than a 
scavenger and carrion feeder, though he may occasionally be seen 
stooping at a hare or other small mammal. 
Either in the company of vultures, tearing at a carcase, 
or near a slaughter house, or in open sandy plains on the look 
out for rats and lizards sums up the habits of the Imperial 
Eagle in a nutshell, that is so far as we, in India, see him, for he 
is only a winter visitor and beseems to love soaring on outspread 
pinions, as little as the Indian villager likes walking and only 
does so when he must. 
The Golden Eagle on the other hand is a dweller of the 
mighty Himalayas and seldom, if ever, comes down to the plains. 
Personally, I have never seem him below an altitude of 4,000 ft. 
above sea level and that only in very severe winters. 
They almost invariably hunt in pairs and may be seen any 
day between September and February from altitudes varying 
from 8,000 to 16,000 ft., scouring the hillsides for pheasants and 
snow cock ; the lambs and kids of the mountain sheep and goats 
also pay a heavy annual toll, while shepherds all over the 
Himalayas, tell of their depredations among the flocks. 
