26 
and upper neck of all but the quite adult Indicus, while that 
on the neck of the young Bengalensis is darkish brown. The 
basal half of the back of the neck of Indicus is quite bare ; in the 
young Bengalensis, it is more or less covered with down ; lastly 
the sides and front of the neck in Indicus, are sparsely dotted 
with star-like tufts of white down, (herein much resembling 
G. Himalayensis,) while these parts in the young of Bengalensis 
are somewhat thickly sprinkled with double hair-like feathers, 
such as in Jndicus occur only on the chin, throat, face and head. 
The colour of the claws and cere is also much paler in Indicus 
than in the young of Bengalensis. 
The close similarity of the plumage of the young of Hima- 
layensis and Indicus, is another indication of the close relation- 
ship that these two species bear to each other. Both moreover 
breed in rocks, (and not on trees as Mulvescens and Bengalensis 
do). The plumage of the adults moreover is nearly as similar 
as that of the young, and the character, extent and distribution 
of the down, on the head and neck, in both, is identical. 
No. 5. Gyps Bengalensis, (GMEL.) 
Tue INDIAN WHITE-BACKED VULTURE 
‘Breeds from the latter end of November, to the early part of 
March, but the majority I think lay durmg the month of 
January. The nest, as far as my personal experience goes 
(and I have seen many hundreds), is always placed upon trees, 
even where convenient cliffs and precipices are close at hand. 
Banyan and Peepul are their favourite trees, I think, but I have 
found them breeding on the Neem, Tamarind, Arjun (Terminalia 
Arjiina) and others; in every case, however, on /arge trees. As a 
rule they prefer to nest near each other, in the outskirts of 
some populous town, like Binderabund for instance, where 
ancient groves with suitable trees abound, and I have seen as 
many as fifteen nests on one single Peepul tree, and as many as 
a hundred on a group of trees lying within a circle of two or 
three hundred yards in diameter. It is not, however, uncommon 
to find a solitary nest, high up on some huge Peepul tree, standing 
isolated in the midst of cultivated land or scanty jungle; but 
I have an idea that these are always the nests of young birds, 
and that while the clustered nests are tenanted by the same 
species year after year (in one case that I know of, for certainly 
the last fifty years), these solitary nests are rarely if ever re-occu- 
pied by this Vulture, who, after the first year, abandons them to 
other tenants. On two occasions, I have found nests of this 
