MILVINE. 57 
is not a little to be wondered at. A pair of kites with their hungry 
brood are not desirable neighbours near a poultry yard. I am 
inclined to think that they have two broods in a year; more 
especially as I notice in Poona that a nest in a neem tree in my 
garden was occupied twice in the same season, whether by the 
same birds or not I cannot say. The nests are more numerous 
in the months of November and February than at other times; 
this also points to two broods in the year. 
The nests: are clumsy structures, often of large size, built 
generally in a stout fork, or junction of the limbs, but occasion- 
ally on a horizontal bough of a tree. The eggs are usually two 
(rarely three) in number, broad oval in shape, greyish-white in 
color, boldly and handsomely blotched, streaked, and spotted 
bright red-brown. They vary much in coloring. In size they 
average 2'2 inches in length by about 1°8 in breadth. 
Milvus melanotis, Zem & Schl. 
56bis—Milvus major, Hume.—Sind, Stray Feathers, Vol. I, 
p. 160; Butler, Bombay; Stray Feathers, Vol. IX, p. 375; 
Murray’s Vertebrate Zoology of Sind, p. 91; Hume’s Scrap 
Book, p. 326. 
THE LARGE PARIAH KITE. 
Length,..26°75; 27-75 ; wing, 21, 21°5; tail, 13:3, 13°75 ;. tarsus, 
2:5, 2°4; bill at gape, 1°75, 1°78. 
Adult Female.—Bill and claws horny-black ; legs dull yellow ; 
toes mingled dingy-greenish and yellow. 
Plumage.—General plumage much as in the common kite. 
There appears to be a set controversy regarding the distinct- 
ness of this from M. govinda. Ihave never met with the bird 
myself, although I have constantly been on the look-out for it. 
Mr. Hume saw several specimens in the dhwnds of Upper Sind, 
and obtained one in Bombay Harbour. 
Genus, Pernis, Cuvier. 
Bill rather small, gently curving from the base, the tip very 
slightly hooked ; margin of the upper mandible almost straight, 
or very feebly sinuated; nostrils narrow, oblique; the lores 
covered with small scale-like feathers; wings moderate, fourth 
quill longest, the second to the sixth sinuate internally ; tail rather 
long, slightly rounded ; tarsi short, half plumed in front, covered 
with small reticulated scales; toes with transverse scales, entire 
at the roots of the nails, elsewhere divided; lateral toes about 
equal, free, or barely united to the mid-toe ; nails unequal, only 
moderately curved ; middle-claw dilated internally. 
Pernis ptilorhynchus, Tem. 
57.—Pernis cristata, Cuv.—Jerdon’s Birds of India, Vol. I, 
p- 108; Butler, Guzerat; Stray Feathers, Vol. III, p. 448; 
