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Show 38 MR. HOWARD SAUNDERS ON THE GENUS AQUILA. [Jail. 17, Eagles, I wish to state that they have been examined by Mr. J. H. Gurney, Canon Tristram, Dr. Jerdon, and Mr. H. E. Dresser, and that their views on the subject coincide with m y own, also that I have brought with me no specimens which do not immediately bear on the question. In addition to those lent by some of these gentlemen, I am indebted to Lord Lilford for the most important links iu the chain of evidence which I have to bring forward. "Although few Eagles exhibit more marked characters than the adult Aquila imperialis (of Cuvier, Gould, and Schlegel, = A. mo-cjilnik of Gmelin aud Latham), yet a great amount of confusion exists respecting it aud some of its congeners in immature plumage. " It will perhaps be best to begin by showing the different stages of the bird as observed in Europe. " Thoroughly identified birds taken from the nest near Seville early in June 1869, by Lord Lilford, and still living in his aviary, were, when I saw them in a tawny plumage, certainly somewhat darker than Nos. 1 and 2, but still so light that several good ornithologists at the time pronounced them to be A. ncevioides. Due allowance must be made for the burning sun of Spain on those before m e ; the result of which is clearly shown in No. 2, which is a bird hatched the same year as No. 1, but killed in February 1870 instead of October 1869. " No. 3 is a still older bird. " No. 4 shows the connecting-link of the tawny bird passing into the dark stage; the centre barred feather in the tail coming out above the uniform old feathers. " No. 5. Leads up to " No. 6. Adult female shot from her eggs. " No. 7. I take to be a somewhat older male. " So far as regards Spanish specimens, which as a rule exhibit a good deal of white on the carpal joints, and rather less on the scapulars than birds from the east of Europe and Asia Minor; this, however, varies not only with age, but with the time of year. I once possessed a Spanish Imperial Eagle with a great deal of white on one scapula aud hardly any on the other. All the eastern specimens are adults ; but Mr. Cullen, of Kustendje, writes word that all young Imperials there are tawny, and never striated. " True __. imperialis at no time exhibits a striated plumage with white bars on the wings as in the Indian specimens now before us; yet these birds have been set down by many Indian naturalists as A. imperialis, and similar specimens in the British Museum from Nepaul are labelled Aquila mogilnik-the latter a hideous name; but the European bird has a prior claim to both. Mr. Allan Hume, in his ' Rough Notes of a Naturalist,' describes the stages we have here, but unfortunately omits the fourth, or adult stage, which I have not been able to obtain from India. I do not mean to say that true A. imperialis may not occur in India ; nor do I say that this bird, when adult, may not have white scapulars ; but I do contend that this bird is not true A. imperialis, but the Aquila bifasciata, as figured in Gray and Hardwicke's ' 111. Ind. Zool.' vol. i. pl. 17. At pl. 28, vol. ii., the |