418 Mr. H. E. Dresser on the Occurrence of 



May, also in the wooded valleys of Sirmoor, forty miles 

 east of Simla. 



" Sirmoor, 15th April, 1887. While big-game shooting, 

 I to-day crossed the Jellal River and ascended a thickly- 

 wooded ridge separating it from the next valley. 



" At the head of a jungly ravine and overhanging its steep 

 banks I came on a tree, of no great height, with a huge nest 

 on its top. 



" The nest was only about thirty feet from the ground, and 

 standing on the hillside above I could look dovvn right into 

 it, having a good view of the owner. It was a Black Vulture, 

 sitting very close, in fact it was only when I shouted and threw 

 sticks that it could be induced to move ; then, standing up, 

 it opened its beak and spread its wings by way of intimida- 

 tion, at the same time disclosing to view one large white egi^ 

 on which it had been sitting. The tree was by no means 

 easy to climb, being covered with a tangled mass of wild 

 vine, to say nothing of being alive with red ants, which, to my 

 detriment, resented being disturbed." 



The nest, built in the crown of the tree, was an enormous 

 mass of sticks with finer ones as a rough lining. The large, 

 round, white egg — the full complement — was very nearly 

 hatched. 



During February of the next year I found the Black 

 Vulture in the Nepal Terai, and saw an individual, in com- 

 pany with the common brown species, feeding on the carcase 

 of a bear which I had shot. 



XXI. — On the Occurrence of Pseudoscolopax taczanowskii 

 in Western Siberia. By H. E. Dresser. 



(Plate VII.) 



The Semipalmated Snipe,or so-called "Snipe-billed Godwit,'* 

 is certainly one of the rarest and least known of the Palae- 

 arctic Waders, and up to the present time its breeding- range 

 has been undiscovered. First described by Blyth in 1848 as 



