38 Mr. H. Duruford 07i some Birds observed 



NOCTUA CUNICULARIA. 



Common. Nesting in holes in the ground. 



Circus cinereus. 



Common in the valley^ not seen on the hills. In flight it 

 is very quick and graceful : few birds are a match for this 

 Harrier; and as it sweeps rapidly over the ground^now scarcely 

 clearing the tops of the high grass^ and the next miniite 

 rising to drop on some luckless victim, it is impossible not to 

 admire its great strength of wing. The stomach of one shot 

 on the 24th November contained the remains of a freshly 

 killed Thinocorus rumicivorus. To the colonist it is well 

 known ; and more than one person assured me it nested on 

 the ground amongst long grass, and laid two white eggs ; my 

 search, however, for the nest was unsuccessful. Legs, feet, 

 and irides pale orange. 



Geranoaetus melanoleucus. 



Not uncommon, especially in the upper part of the valley. 

 On the 9th November I shot a female from the nest, on a 

 ledge high up in a Tosca cliif, thirteen miles north-west of 

 the town, and after considerable difl&culty secured the two 

 eggs, which are of a dirty white colour, very slightly speckled 

 with brown, and measure 2*6 inches by 2. As they con- 

 tained chicks about to be released from their prisons, I con- 

 clude two is the number of eggs usually laid. On a subse- 

 quent visit to the same cliff", and also to one in its immediate 

 neighbourhood, which, from its peculiar shape, the colonists 

 have named the '^''old castle,^"* I found several nests of pre- 

 vious years, all of the same character, viz. a structure of sticks 

 some three feet in diameter and fifteen inches in depth, the 

 inside being lined with a few straws. 



Buteo erythronotus. 



Not uncommon on the hills, but very shy. Whilst riding 

 on the 18th November from Ninfas Point, and about seven 

 miles from the colony, I found a nest on the top of a bush, 

 some nine feet from the ground, containing two chicks, ap- 

 parently about a fortnight old. The nest was a large struc- 

 ture of sticks, lined with a varictv of matcrials^ — bits of skin 



