Birds of Celebes; Falconidae. 
67 
Accipiter rhodogaster . The similarity of the adult Honey-buzzard and Hawk-eagle 
of Celebes naturally did not escape Mr. Wallace, and he remarks (h 1) that 
it must he ascribed to the influence of some local peculiarity or to mimicry; 
the same ex]3lanation of mimicry is advanced by him for the American Harpagus 
and Accipiter. 
As to the Honey-buzzard and Hawk-eagle, the first suggestion — that of 
some local peculiarity — seems to us to be insufficient of itself alone to ac- 
count for the production of a striking correspondence in the characteristic 
markings of two birds of different habits of life ; though soil, climate, food, and 
the coloration of surrounding objects are doubtless not without effect upon the 
coloration of a bird’s plumage. 
Touching the argument for mimicry it is possible to urge that either species 
may be benefited by resembling the other : (a) that the weaker Honey-buzzard, 
through assuming the dress of the Hawk-eagle, would be avoided by any com- 
petitors for the same class of food, suffer less from the persecution of Crows 
and other birds, and so enjoy a freer field of action when searching for its 
food and attending to its nest; (b) that the Hawk-eagle, from its likeness to 
the harmless, insect-eating Honey-buzzard, would be at an advantage in ap- 
proaching the Rails, Waterfowl and other large birds and small mammals upon 
which it preys. 
Apart from anything else, it must be objected to the first argument that 
the Honey-buzzard apparently stands alone among the higher animals as a 
devourer of wasps’ nests and their contents, and other destroyers of wasps’ 
grubs are only to be found among small insects (such as Stglops, which deposits 
its eggs in the bodies of Hgmenoptera) , which — it need not be said — could 
not be afraid of it in the dress of a Hawk-eagle; also, birds of prey are hated 
and persecuted by other birds just on account, of their predatory habits, and 
it might be well for Pernis celehensis in this respect if it resembled some more 
harmless bird. As it is, there is reason to suppose that the Honey-buzzard 
is not much molested; in his “Birds of Ceylon” p. 92, Colonel Legge mentions 
a specimen of the allied Pernis ptilonorhgnchus which was shot in the fort at 
Trincomalie while “associating with Crows, and flying round the barrack-room 
at the dinner hour in company with them, on the look-out for scraps thrown 
out from the verandahs”. The European Honey-buzzard, however, according 
to Naumann and Dresser, is much given to robbing the nests of other birds, 
and is vigorously mobbed in consequence. 
The second argument which we have set up — that the Hawk-eagle in 
the disguise of the Pernis would be at an advantage in approaching its prey 
— is stronger; but there are reasons which go far to destroy it. In order that 
the animals upon which it preys should be rendered indifferent to the appear- 
ance of the Spizaetus., it is necessary that the harmless Pernis should be a very 
familiar bird and the Hawk-eagle rare. This is not the case. In four of the 
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