34 AUSTRALIAN ZOOLOGY, 
Food.—The thylacine is a flesh-eating animal. In its native 
state it fed on kangaroos, wallabies, echidnas, but when sheep were 
introduced it exhibited a decided preference for mutton, It made 
great havoc of poultry and other domestic animals of the settlers, 
Although a marsupial mammal, in regard to food it resembles the 
dingo of New South Wales, by being carnivorous. One in captivity 
declined to eat wombats, which where plentiful in the locality. 
Where found.—In Tasmania. Thylacines are found only in the 
more remote parts of the colony. In past ages they were denizens 
of Australia and Patagonia. Fossif remains prove this. It is 
peculiar to the southern island, and is met with at Woolnooth, St. 
Patrick’s River, Hampshire Hills, &c. 

WHITE-BELLIED Sra Eaare—Haliaetus leucogaster, 
Description—(Brisbane Courier, March, 1895).—White-bellied 
eagle, white-bellied falcon, sea eagle, sea osprey, and fish-hawk are 
names also given to this bird. The plumage of both sexes is much 
alike, but the female is larger than the male. In the adults the 
head, neck, and all the under surface are white, and the tail 
feathers, for about one-third of their length, are terminated by the 
same colour. The primary feathers and the base of the tail feathers 
are of a blackish brown, the remainder of the plumage being grey. 
Tn the eyes the cere and lores and the horny space over the eyes are 
of a bluish lead colour, slightly tinged with green, and the irides 
dark brown. The bill is of a bluish horn colour, tipped with black. 
The legs and feet are yellowish white, and the claws black. The 
young birds have the head, throat, and back of the neck of a light 
buff, and the whole of the upper surface of the body and wings of a 
_light chocolate brown, with each feather tipped with buffy white. 
The chest is brown, each feather being margined with buff, and the 
abdomen buff with each feather tipped with brown. The tail is of 
alight buff at the base, passing into a deep brown at the tip, which 
is white ; while the under tail coverts and the under surface of the 
tail feathers are white Length, 30in. to 3¥in.; wing, 2lin. and 
22in. ; tail, 10in. to 104in. ; bill, 24in. to 23in. ; tarsus, 4in. 
Habits. ~The flight of this eagle is very majestic as it floats 
smoothly about in the air and performs various aerial gyrations, the 
tips of its pinions being gracefully curved upwards. It is almost as 
large and as lordly a bird and quite as rapacious as the bold eagle. 
It is very wary, and swift in its flight, and hence it is difficult to 
get within gunshot. It has a remarkably Keen and fearless look, 
which seems born of the sea, whilst its ashy-white plumage corres- 
Rowdy closely to the colour of the ocean surf, in which it principally 
nds its food. 
Nidification.—It builds its nest, a large flat structure of sticks 
and twigs, on some inaccessible high crag, or in a fork near the 
summit of some lofty tree, generally a eucalypt or melaleuca 
growing on the cliffs. A pair of these birds are invariably found 
together, and their union is evidently that of a lifetime, for they 

