1917-] Nidification of some Indian Falcon/dte: 235 



rich red against the brown twigs of the nest. There were 

 no canes or really stout creepers to be found close by, but 

 we made a rough rope of grass and tried to pull the sapling 

 up towards us — without any effect, however, as the rope 

 always broke before we could make the sapling bend. 

 Eventually the rapidly gathering darkness drove us away 

 and, as I had to leave at daybreak the following morning,, 

 the eggs were never taken. 



On another occasion, in 1894, I came on a pair of Hobbies 

 evidently breeding quite close to this same place, but failed 

 to find their nest, and I never succeeded iu taking its eggs 

 in North Cachar. 



Ill the years 1906 and onwards I found many pairs of 

 these birds breeding on the rugged hills which border the 

 Sylliet district, especially in those which ran from Cherra- 

 poongi to Lailancote, the cliffs in the Khasia Hills where I 

 found the Shaliin regularly breeding. In a distance of 

 about ten miles or less we eventually found four nesting- 

 places, but out of these one pair of birds deserted after we 

 had taken the first clutch of their eggs, one other pair 

 came to grief in some unknown Avay, though the other two 

 supplied us with a clutch of eggs regularly every year. 



All four of these nests were built on trees in very much 

 the same kind of position as that seen at Kurungma, but 

 in only one of the four were they at all difficult to get at. 

 This nest, evidently an old one of the Jungle-Crow, had 

 been built at the top of a very large tree on the usual cliff- 

 side, but this was so sheer both above and below the wide 

 ledge on which it stood that ropes were imperative to enable 

 one to be lowered down to it ; once on the ledge it was, of 

 course, simple enough to climb the tree and take the eggs. 

 This nest was never used again by the birds, nor could we 

 ever find out where they had removed to. 



A second nest used by a pair of Hobbies, again that of a 

 Jungle-Crow, was placed on a small tree at a height of about 

 twenty-five feet from the ground on the steeply shelving side 

 of a hill, hardly steep enough to be called a precipice, yet 

 steep enough to make walking difficultj and the use of hands. 



