MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 913 



bank. Next day although it was 12 miles from camp, I trusted to luck and 

 went back with some Burmans prepared to scale the tree. It took us two 

 hours to get up the necessary 66 feet, as there was not a branch below the 

 cleft, and pegs had to be driven into the bark at each foot and a half, but I 

 was amply repaid by finding 2 eggs in the nest. I shot the birds to make sure 

 of my identification and send you the skins of the pair of Hobbies. The eggs 

 were laid in the cleft of the tree simply on the slight accumulation of refuse 

 that had gathered there. There w;is no nest, and this seems to be the general 

 habit, because on a former occasion, although then in a hole in a cliff on the 

 Myittha river, as recorded on page 518, Volume XVI of this Journal, tht re was 

 no nest. The eggs are of the ordinary falcon type. The shell strong and 

 rough. The ground colour is a dirty white and one egg is washed a good deal 

 more than the other with reddish sepia, thicker and more in blotches at the big 

 end. They measure 1-56 x 1*19 and 1*55 x 1*23. 



K. C. MACDONALD. 

 Moulmein, 20th May 1908. 



No. XVI.— THE CUCKOO {CVCULVS CANORUS). 

 This bird is very common on the ghats in the vicinity of Mhow. On my 

 birds' nesting expeditions lately, I have heard it call constantly, and seen it 

 flying about singly and in pairs. I have not, however, obtained any eggs at 

 present though I hope I may. I merely report this, as the Vindhyas are not 

 mentioned as one of its haunts in the " Fauna of British India? 1 I have not 

 heard it anywhere near the station but out in the jungles, which are nowhere 

 nearer than five or six miles. I constantly heard the Cuckoo on the hills 

 round Quetta, when last stationed there. 



R. M. BETHAM, Lieut. Col., 



102nd (K. E. O.) Grenadiers. 

 Mhow, C. I., 18th July 1908. 



No. XVII.— THE BEARDED VULTURE Oil " LAMMERGEYER " 



(GYPAETUS BARBATDS). 



Judging from his note on Gypactus barbatus on page 500, Vol. XVIII of the 

 Journal, General Osborn appears to have accepted, as fact, the general fallacy 

 with regard to the killing powers of the Lammergeyer. A glance at his nest 

 and its environments is apt to raise the bird considerably in one's estimation as a 

 mighty hunter, as therein may be found a miscellaneous collection of all kinds 

 of bones, from a shin bone of an ox to that of a muskdeer or a tiny lamb, but 

 how many of these are the result of his own killing ? Not one, I fear, unless it 

 be the latter and that even doubtful. I have more than once seen a Lam- 

 mergeyer breaking bones, and the way he does it is to soar up about 300 feet 

 from the ground and drop the bone among boulders. I watched one in Kash- 

 mir for the better part of an hour, and during that time the bone must have 

 been dropped quite 50 times, but still remained unbroken, when I left the 



