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



as well as feet frequently advisable. A short way below the 

 tree the side of the hill dropped down almost perpendicularly 

 for a couple of hundred feet, but there appeared to be no 

 trees growing on it which would have been suitable as a 

 nesting-site. 



This nest furnished me yearly with a clutch of either three 

 or four eggs, the birds always returning to it and layiug a 

 second clutch, which was not allowed to be disturbed. 



The third nest was either one which had been made by 

 the birds themselves, or else so much repaired and altered as 

 to make it look as if it was their own original work. It was 

 situated on a smallish tree growing out of a cleft in a rock, 

 and was quite easily approached from below. This pair of 

 birds had two nests within about 200 yards of one another, 

 of which they made use in alternate seasons, but, when a 

 clutch of eggs was stolen from one, they would invariably 

 lay the second in the other nest, and return to the original 

 one the succeeding year. The second nest was much like 

 that just found, either built by the birds themselves, or 

 much repaired and altered by them. The nest of the fourth 

 pair was built on a very small thick tree, hardly more than a 

 high bush in size, within sight of the eyrie of a Shahin, and 

 not twenty yards from a small colony of Blyth's Swift. In 

 fact, the bush grew out of a crevice which ran in a slanting 

 position, much interrupted and broken, across the face of 

 the cliff for fully a hundred feet, in the upper end of which 

 same crevice the Swifts were breeding. 



This pair of birds came to grief in some way, for when 

 we visited it to take the eggs, the nest was pulled to pieces, 

 the eggs smashed, and the remains of one of the parents (just 

 a few wing- and tail-feathers) were lying on a rock below. 

 In this case the birds had made use of a Dove's nest as a 

 basis for their own, but had built quite a substantial nest of 

 twigs, leaves, and long streamers of moss on the top of it, 

 the moss having evidently been torn from a dead tree, within 

 a few feet of their own bush, which was covered with a 

 similar kind. 



I have also seen a nest of this bird built on a narrow 



