Find a Nest in a Tall Pine 217 
found he had dismounted at the foot of a fir tree, one of the largest 
in that portion of the forest. It was well over too ft. in height 
and at the summit was an immense nest of sticks. A glance 
showed us that it was a nest in occupation, for it bore unmis- 
takable signs of recent repairs and additions, well known to those 
experienced in the manners and customs of the great raptorial birds. 
But the next question—by no means easy to answer—was whether 
it was merely repaired ready for use or whether it already contained 
the much-desired egg, for Black Vultures, like Griffons, only lay 
one egg. 
Having picketed the horses and ascended the steep _ hillside 
until the great nest was very little above our level, we proceeded 
to make a careful inspection of it. My companion, who carried 
a powerful binocular telescope, soon called out that he could see 
a ‘yellow thing” in the nest, which he declared seemed to move 
upon the trunk of the tree being vigorously struck with an axe. 
Sure enough the yellow thing proved to be nothing less than the 
crown of the head of a Black Vulture. A few more vigorous blows 
of the axe caused the bird to take alarm. Raising herself in the 
nest she opened her wings and sailed away. So far our search had 
been successful for it was now quite clear that the nest was occupied. 
The next thing was how to get up to it? 
The tree was about 8 ft. in circumference at the height of a man 
above the ground and grew smaller imperceptibly. No sound 
branch broke the smoothness of the trunk for over 60 ft. but at 
little over half that height the decaying stumps of branches pro- 
jected for a few inches from the bole at rare intervals. These were 
so small and apparently so rotten that we disregarded them and con- 
centrated all our energies on endeavouring to throw a light line over 
the lowest sound branch. After an hour's ineffectual struggles, in 
which our most powerful casts were hardly two-thirds of the height, 
I was compelled to abandon the attempt and acknowledge myself 
