A Precarious Nesting Place 189 
habit of nesting at the extremity of a bough that I have been 
compelled to secure myself with a rope before crawling out along 
the slender branch supporting the nest. At times, nests placed 
in such situations become dislodged and fall to the ground. | 
knew of such an instance in 1906, when a nest placed at the 
extreme end of a pendent cork-oak bough gradually slipped through 
the supporting branches. So long as the old bird was sitting, the 
disaster was postponed although it was obvious enough that the 
nest might drop through at any moment. In due course the young 
bird was hatched out and with the increased weight as it grew larger 
the strain became too great and one day the inevitable occurred and 
both nest and young bird came to the ground. The distance was 
short, about 12 ft. to 15 ft. and no harm was done and the old 
birds continued to feed their offspring as it sat on the ground in 
the remains of its nest amid the gum-cistus bushes. The Snake 
agle is essentially a tree-nesting species, only once have I found 
a nest on a cliff and then it was built in the spreading boughs 
of an arbutus growing from a cranny in the face of the crag. 
Colonel Irby however once found a nest in Morocco in a lentiscus 
bush with its base actually touching the ground. Now and again 
I have found nests high up in the fork of a really big tree, secure 
from molestation save from one of the guild of inveterate birds- 
nesters who decline to admit that, yiven time and appliances, any 
tree is impossible. 
Every nest I have visited has been constructed in exactly the 
‘same manner, the base of sticks and twigs and some dead leaves, 
lined with freshly cut green boughs of cork-oak or ilex. Some 
of the newly built nests are little more than a small platform of 
sticks, not 18 in. across, with a slight hollow in the middle. 
Nests of former years which have been repaired and added 
to are sometimes double this size and effectually conceal the old 
bird from view when sitting on her egg or young. When a nest 
