on Vultures and Eagles. 415 



discovered next year (1874) by Colonel Verner, in the same 

 ravine though apparently not in quite the same sites. 



On 28th Nov., 1886, while wild-fowl shooting at Mornie 

 Tal, a lake at the foot of the Simla Hills, thirty miles east of 

 Kalka, a Bonelli's Eagle suddenly swooped down and seized 

 one of my wounded ducks, and would have carried it off if 

 I had not shot the Eagle. 



I also obtained Nisaetus fasciatus near Candia in Crete 

 during November, 1896. 



During many years spent in Northern India, among the 

 outer ranges of the Himalayas after Chamois, or Gooral, as 

 they are there called, with several expeditions into the higher 

 ranges of Kashmir and Baltistan stalking Ibex, there was no 

 bird I saw more of than the Great Bearded Vulture, or Lam- 

 mergeyer [Gypaetus barbatus). Everywhere throughout the 

 hills at an elevation of from 4000 to 8000 feet it was plentiful, 

 especially round Dagshai *, Kasauli, and Sabathu, during the 

 winter; I frequently saw it, in company with the white- 

 backed Gyps bengalensis, feeding on the refuse from the 

 slaughter-houses. I much doubt if it kills prey for itself, 

 anyhow I never even heard of it doing so. 



In Kashmir I used to watch the birds for hours and often 

 saw them pass over flocks of goats, and on more than one 

 occasion pass and repass female Ibex with young kids without 

 taking any notice of them, nor did the animals shew the 

 slightest alarm, which they certainly would have done if the 

 birds had been a source of danger. 



During a winter spent at Dagshai the Lammergeyers were 

 always with us, and though they used to sail along the hill- 

 side, often within a few yards of the fowls and pigeons which 

 fed in our Mess Compound, I never saw any hostile act, 

 though they would pick up bones or fragments of meat. 



The soldiers, in fact most non-ornithological Europeans, 

 invariably talked of these birds as Golden Eagles, misled by 

 the ruddy buft' colour of the head and neck of the mature 

 specimens, which gives them a decidedly golden appearance. 



* Dagshai is a small military station in the Outer Himalayas, thirty 

 miles south of Simla. 



