27 
bird that I had robbed one year, occupied the next by the Grey 
eagle owl, (Ascalaphia Coromanda), and once I found a lordly 
king Vulture in possession of its plebeian brother’s former 
residence. 
The nest is a large irregular platform of sticks, sometimes 
quite at the top of the tree, often wedged in a fork, averaging 
probably nearly 3 feet in diameter and 6 inches in thickness, 
but often far exceeding this latter dimension, especially where 
a deep fork has to be filled in. Not far from Puhpoondh, I 
made a man measure one in my presence, which was an irregu- 
lar cone, (the apex downwards) by pushing an iron ramrod 
through it, and found the depth to be 22 inches! The materials 
of the nest appear to be heaped on at random, but in reality 
they are so carefully overlaid, that it is very difficult to pull 
out one of the sticks that compose the nest, without pulling 
the whole fabric to pieces. The shape of the nest depends upon 
the locality, and is more generally oblong or oval, than truly 
circular. There is only a slight depression, as a rule, towards 
the centre of the nest, but I found one nest near Hodul 
which was a regular deep cup, in which I really think a mo- 
derate-sized sheep might have been stowed away. They always 
line the centre of the nest more or less with leaves, and the 
peepul seems their favourite. These leaves are green and fresh 
when the egg is first laid, and before you blow it, you can 
pretty well guess how long the egg has lain in the nest, by the 
condition of the lining leaves. 
They lay normally a single egg. That 2 eggs may have been 
found in one nest I will not take upon myself to deny, but I 
have before me now, notes of eighty odd nests, and besides these, 
J have had many others examined of which I took no note at the 
time, and yet I never met with more than a single egg or a single 
young one in any nest. In colour, the eggs when fresh are dull 
white, with an excessively pale bluish green tinge. Asarule they 
are unmarked, but at times they are a good deal tinged and 
speckled, or even blotched, with darker or lighter shades of 
reddish brown, most usually I think chiefly towards the large 
end. The eggs of this species vary to an amazing extent; 
whether in reality these eggs vary more than those of the other 
Vultures, or whether it is, that the enormous series of over a 
a hundred eggs, which I have myself collected, makes the varia- 
tions more conspicuous, I cannot say, but the fact remains that 
I have the eggs, of my own taking, of almost (for such a 
bird) every conceivable size and shape. ‘The cubic contents of 
one egg (the largest) is certainly 24 times that of the smallest. 
One is a perfect pear, another so long an oval, as to be almost 
