1 91 7-] Nidification of some Indian Falconida. 229 



were concerned. For ten years, from 1901 to 1911, both 

 pairs of birds bred regularly ; I then left India, but my men 

 tell me that the birds are still there, and haunt and breed in 

 the same places. 



We found that each pair of Shahins had at least two 

 nesting-places and laid sometimes in one nest and some- 

 times in the other, but we could not find out any hard- 

 and-fast rule which governed their actions. Sometimes they 

 would breed two years running in one nest, whilst at other 

 times they would use a nest for the one year only. In the 

 same way they would sometimes lay a second clutch in the 

 same nest as that from which the first had been robbed, 

 and sometimes they would go straight to their second eyrie 

 aud commence to repair it. One pair of birds had their two 

 nests within about two hundred yards of one another, and 

 on ledges in the same cliff, but tiie other pair had their 

 two eyries at least half a mile apart, and it was long before 

 my men marked down the second for me. 



There were at least two more pairs of Shahins breeding in 

 the Lailancote 0113*8 three or four miles away from these 

 birds, but our few attempts, never very prolonged, were 

 unsuccessful in locating their eyi'ies. 



All the Shahins' nests I have seen, altogether eight in 

 number, have been built on ledges of rock on very pre- 

 cipitous rugged cliffs, and, with one exception, in places 

 inaccessible except with the aid of ropes. As a rule, they 

 were not far from the top of the cliff, but almost invariably 

 protected from above by an overhanging ledge, boulder, or 

 clamp of bushes. One could therefoi'e seldom find a nest 

 except by watching the birds from a distance, and then, 

 where it was possible, from an opposite cliff or hill. The 

 exception to which I have referred was the second eyrie of 

 one of the two pairs of birds mentioned above. This par- 

 ticular nest was built on the edge of a comparatively wide 

 ledge of rock which sloped gradually down from about four 

 feet from the top to about ten feet or rather more below it. 

 The cliff here was rather broken and crumbly, but there were 

 numerous sturdy bushes growing both on the ledge itself 



