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AUSTRALIAN ZOOLOGY. 
WeEDGE-TAILED HAGLE—Aquila fucosa. 

Discovery.—Captain Waterhouse, in an excursion made by him 
in March, 1800, to the north arm of Broken Bay, wounded and 
secured a bird of a species never seen before in New South Wales— 
at least by any of the colonists. It was a large eagle, which gave 
proof of its strength by driving its talons through a man’s foot while 
it was lying in the bottom of the boat with its legs tied together. 
Tt stood about three feet in height, and during the ten days it was 
in captivity it was remarkable for refusing to be fed by any but one 
particular person. It divided the strands of a rope with which it 
was fastened and escaped. Latham and Gray designated this bird 
Aquila audax ; but Cuvier styled it Aquila fucosa. The colonists 
called it the eagle hawk. It is also known as the mountain eagle of 
New South Wales. 
Description.—It is the Jargest raptorial bird in Australia, being 
the representative of the golden eagle of the Northern Hemisphere. 
One that was shot by Mr. Gould weighed nine pounds, and measured 
six feet eight inches from tip to tip of the opposite pinions. As to 
the plumage, the adults have the head, throat, and all the upper 
and under surface blackish brown, stained on the edges and 
extremities of many of the feathers, particularly the wing and the 
upper tail coverts, with pale brown; the back and sides of the 
neck are rusty-red. The cere and the space round the eye are 
ellowish white, The bill is of a yellowish horn colour, passing into 
black at the tip. The feet are light yellow; the claws are strong, 
curyed, and formidable, three being directed forward and one 
behind. The beak is short, strong, and hooked, that is, bent down- 
wards at the tip; the upper mandible is rather larger than the 
lower. ‘The female has the eenere plumage of a lighter tint, and 
the feathers margined in a larger proportion with the rusty-red. 
The lengthened and ie BeeaRed form of its tail gives to the 
Australian bird a somewhat pleasing and elegant outline. The 
female is larger than the male. 
Habits.—The wedge-tailed eagle frequents the interior portion 
of the country rather than the shores or the neighbourhood of the 
sea. It dwells both in the dense forests and the open plains. It 
finds an asylum in the impenetrable forests, secure from the inroads 
of the destroying hand of man; but by reason of constant warfare 
its numbers are becoming diminished in the settled districts. The 
flight of this species is soaring and majestic, and its evolutions are 
