228 Mr. E. C. Stuart Baker on the [Ibis, 



and the nest decreased until with a shout he announced 

 to us that he was at it, adding that there were four eggs 

 visible. 



All the time the Naga was making his rather perilous 

 journey the two birds dashed backwards and forwards, 

 screaming their rage, but, though every now and then both 

 of them made swoops towards the man, they never came 

 within ten feet of his head. It was noticeable that the 

 bigger bird, the female, was much the more noisy in her 

 cursing, more bold in her swoops, and more persistent, 

 though, as the Naga began to actually remove the eggs, 

 the birds both got more excited tlian ever and we expected 

 them every minute to strike his head. 



They did not do so, however, and, in a few minutes, four 

 beautiful eggs were safely landed by the Naga and given 

 over to me. They were, of course, just like the Common 

 Peregrine's, but a good deal smaller. 



The birds remained screaming about the cliff as we went 

 on our way home, and soon settled down to business again, 

 and later on laid three more eggs, with which we did not 

 interfere. 



In the district of North Cachar the Shahiu was not 

 common, but in the adjoining Khasia Hills several pairs 

 bred every year in the very precipitous cliffs round about the 

 village of Lailancote. These cliffs are the highest and most 

 rugged I have seen in any of the hill-ranges south of the 

 Brahmapootra, and in some places the cliffs face each other 

 so closely that they are singularly dark and forbidding in 

 their aspect, but little sun penetrating into their lower 

 depths. 



Many rare birds breed in these places, and from one point 

 in them I have had within range of view at the same moment 

 nests of both the Shahin, the Indian Hobby (F. severus), 

 and a colony of that most rare of Swifts, Blyth's Swift 

 [Micropus acuticaudus). 



I personally knew of two eyries close to Lailancote, from 

 which my men took several clutches of eggs, the birds 

 always being allowed to rear their second laying as far as we 



