WHITE-HEADED SEA-EAGLE. 
bird when taken was full of egg-shells,” and on this plate Latham wrote : 
“ Pondicherry Eagle. . . . Probably this should be made a distinct species.” 
On the other, Watling noted : “ The natives call this bird Girrenerii. This 
hawk lives a good deal on fish, which most of that genus do that inhabit 
New South Wales, where there are several varieties ; the likeness of this kind 
is strongly imitated.” 
This is of more than usual interest, as it seems certain from the preceding 
that the Watling specimen was taken in New South Wales, where it is one of 
the rarest birds and was, even in Gould’s time, as here reproduced. Gould 
wrote : “In size and in the general markings of its plumage this beautifxd 
species is closely allied to the Haliastur intermedins of Java and the U. indus 
of India, but the total absence of the coloured stripe down the centre of the 
white feathers which clothe the head, neck, and breast of the Australian bird 
at once distinguishes it from its Indian and Javan allies. A more beautiful 
instance of analogy than that which these three birds offer to our notice can 
scarcely be imagined, and I feel assured that in their habits they are equally 
similar. The White-breasted Sea-Eagle is very common on the northern and 
eastern portions of Australia, where it takes up its abode in the most secluded 
and retired parts of bays and inlets of the sea. Upon one occasion only did 
I meet with it within the colony of New South Wales, but I have several times 
received specimens from Moreton Bay ; the individual alluded to above was 
observed soaring over the brushes of the Lower Hunter. The chief food of this 
species is fish and crustaceans, which it captures either by plunging down or 
by dexterously throwing out its foot while flying close to the water, such fish 
as swim near the surface being, of course, the only ones that become a prey to 
it ; sometimes the captured fish is borne off to the bird’s favourite perch, which 
is generally a branch overhanging the water, while at others, particularly if 
the bird be disturbed, it is borne aloft in circles over the head of the intruder 
and devoured while the bird is on the wing, with apparent ease. Its flight 
is slow and heavy near the ground, but at a considerable elevation it is \easy 
and buoyant.” 
North, in the Austr. Mus. Spec. Cat., no. 1, Vol. III., p. 224, 1911, states: 
“ In New South Wales I observed it at the entrance of the Tweed Diver 
Heads. Dr. E. P. Ramsay procured specimens at the Richmond River, 
Mr. G. Savidge noted it at the Clarence River Heads, Mr. R. Grant met with 
it at the Bellinger River Heads, and Lewin shot one in 1801 on the Lower 
Hunter River, where Gould also observed a single example many years 
later : this is the furthest south I have known this species to occur.” 
As I will show later, though Latham did not in 1801 distinguish the 
Australian bird with a Latin name, though questioning its identity, in 1821 
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