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S teller’s Sea-Eagle



that they have spread from the southern end of the South Island of

New Zealand, right to the Marlborough Province in the north-east

corner of the Island . . .



STELLER’S SEA-EAGLE


(Thalassaetus jpelagicus)


There is one example of this most interesting Sea-Eagle at the

London Zoo, which was obtained through an exchange with Moscow

Zoo Park. In colour it is principally black and brown, with a white

wedge-shaped tail and thighs, and white on the lower part of the back

and wing coverts. It is about 41 inches in length, one of its peculiarities

is thafc it has fourteen tail feathers instead of the usual twelve of other

Eagles.


This bird was originally discovered by Steller. It feeds on young

seals, foxes, and Ptarmigan, also on dead fish and other carrion. Its

eggs are broad and of somewhat pointed oval form, being plain white

in colour. The shell is slightly rough and entirely without gloss.


There is a very fine exhibit in the Natural History Museum of these

birds, one of the specimens which the plate of this bird is taken from.

Its habitat is in Kamatschtka and the Japanese Islands.



THE BREEDING IN CAPTIVITY OF THE

LITTLE BUSTARD-QUAIL


(Turnix velox)


By Alan Lendon, F.B.C.S., Adelaide


The Little Quail, or, as it is more frequently called, the Button

Quail, is distributed widely on the mainland of Australia but is always

a rarity in captivity, although in some seasons it is common in the oat

crops in this state. It was not till December, 1936, over a year after

I first started keeping Quail, that I managed to secure a specimen

of this bird, finding one in a small grain store where a few birds were

kept as a sideline. This bird, a female, was obtained for the modest

sum of half a crowm. About a month later I secured two males from a

friend who had bred the species in captivity some years previously,



