96 
Mr. J. H. Gurney^s Notes on 
cimens which have come under my notice are Captain Pin- 
wilPs rufous-breasted bird from Bengal, and Col. Cobbers 
small specimen from Mursbedabad, both of which are pre¬ 
served in the British Museum. Two Madras specimens, which 
I also examined in the British Museum, are unfortunately 
in immature dress, and therefore unavailable for the present 
comparison. 
The entirely black chin seems to be a peculiarity of the 
largest form of SpilorniSj to which perhaps the appellation of 
undulatus should be limited; in smaller specimens the black 
on this portion of the plumage is either more or less tinged 
with grey, or is replaced by slate-colour or by brown*, but, I 
think, most frequently by the former. 
It may be convenient here to allude to the curious fact that 
the nestling of >Sf. undulatus appears to resemble the adult 
bird much more closely than it does the immature bird in the 
second plumage. Such is certainly the case with a nestling 
from Nepal, preserved in the British Museum, and briefly 
described at p. 287 of Mr. Sharpens volume; and a similar 
phenomenon also occurs in another species of this genus, 
<8. hido of Java, as may be seen on reference to the repre¬ 
sentation of a Javan nestling given by Professor Schlegel in 
his ^ Valk-Vogels,’ pi. 22. fig. 3. 
Specimens of Spilornis from Central and Southern India 
are so much scarcer in this country than those from Northern 
India, that I have not seen a sufficient number of such ex¬ 
amples to be able to form a satisfactory opinion as to the 
species to which they should be assigned ; but I think it may 
be useful to transcribe the following observations from p. 42 of 
Mr. Hume’s volume on the Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, 
published in 1873:—The Lesser Indian Harrier-Eagle, 
which I have as yet received only from Ellore, Eaipoor, Sum- 
bulpoor, and Dacca, and intermediate localities, differs per¬ 
ceptibly fron S. cheela of Upper India : the wings of the latter 
vary in the males from 18*5 to nearly 20 inches, and in the 
* The chin is hrown in two of the adults of S. rxdherfordi from Hainan; 
I have no memorandum of its colour in the remaining specimens from that 
locality. 
