452 
Mr. J. H. Gurney^s Notes on 
p. 29 of his ^ Catalogue of the Birds in the Museum of the 
Asiatic Society.^ 
Under the head of Haliaetinae I include the genera Thalas- 
saetuSy HaliaetuSy and Polioaetus, as well as the more abnor¬ 
mal one of Gypohieraw. 
The largest Eagle of this group, and also the most powerful, 
especially as regards the great size of the bill, is the sole 
species comprised in the genus Thalassaetus, T. pelagicuSy 
of North-eastern Asia and Japan. 
The Thalassaetm is not separated by Mr. Sharpe 
from Haliaetus ; but I think it ought to be so, as having four¬ 
teen rectrices, instead of twelve, the number in Haliaetus^. 
T. pelagicus is also remarkable for the shape of the tail 
being more decidedly cuneiform than is the case in any other 
Sea-Eagle except Haliaetus leucogaster. 
So few examples of T. pelagicus exist in this country, that 
I think it worth mentioning that the Norwich Museum is 
fortunate in possessing it in three stages, one specimen being 
a fully fledged nestling, taken from a nest at Tasmunskoi, on 
the shores of the Sea of Okhotsk, on the 23rd July, 1853, a 
second being an immature bird beginning to assume the adult 
dress, and the third being an old bird, in which the remark-' 
able adult garb has been fully developed. 
Very little inferior in size to T. pelagicusy and spread over 
a vastly more extensive geographical area, is the typical species 
of the genus Haliaetusy H. albicilla. 
Mr. Sharpens summary of the countries where this Eagle 
exists is necessarily concise ; but a more detailed account will 
be found in Mr. Dresser^s article on this species in the ^ Birds 
of Europe,^ including some particulars of its occurrence in 
Northern Africa and in the Canary Islands,,4>oth of which 
are localities unnoticed by Mr. Sharpe. 
Mr. Sharpe and Mr. Dresser both mention the occurrence 
of H, albicilla in the Aleutian Islands; but in Mr. W. H. 
Dal^^s account of the avifauna of those islands, published in 
* Conf. Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway’s ^ North-American Birds,’ vol. iii. 
pp. 321, 322, with figure of tail of Thalassaetus. I have not had an oppor¬ 
tunity of examining the tail of Haliaetus vociferoides. 
