rors) 
vultures. They never have any rea/ gloss, but some exhibit a 
sort of surface glaze which they lose “by washing ; as indeed 
they are apt to do much of their richest colouring. I have 
seen a very handsome, richly coloured, boldly marked, egg, 
reduced, by the misguided energy of a fair advocate for soap 
water, and a nail brush, to a uniform, dull dirty brown. 
It cannot be too strongly impressed upon egg-collectors that, 
with the exception of pure white ones, no egg should ever be 
washed externally, if it can possibly be avoided. Water 
removes the colour in many eggs, deadens it in most, and in all 
renders it more lable to fade. 
In colour, the eggs of the present species vary from pure 
greyish or rufous white, with only a few minute reddish brown 
specks at one end, to a uniform deep but dingy blood-red, re- 
calling some of ‘the deeper coloured falcon eggs. Between 
these two extremes, every varl iation in shade, extent and inten- 
sity of markings is found. very possible shade of brownish 
red and reddish brown is met with, and every degree of mark- 
ings from a few distinct scattered specks, to streaks and blotches 
nearly confluent over the greater portion of the egg’s surface or 
forming a conspicuous cap at one (more commonly the larger) 
extremity. 
There is a common type with a pinkish white ground, minutely 
freckled and speckled all over with dull brownish red, and then 
richly blotched and clouded towards one end, (at which the 
markings are often almost or quite confluent,) with a deep 
brownish red* Other eggs are uniform pale brownish pink, 
almost salmon colour, without any deeper coloured markings, 
while others of the same type have the colour deepening 
towards one end, or are richly and boldly, or in others feebly and 
faintly blotched, streaked or clouded with a deeper shade. Some 
egos when fresh are excessively handsome and are coloured 
quite like a honey Buzzard’s egg: one I have which might pass, 
so far as colouring goes, for the Osprey’s egg fio ured by 
Hewitson, Pl. VI. i 
They measure from 2°28 to 2°82 in length and from 1°8 to 
2'1in breadth, but the average of 45 eggs measured was 2°6 
«Es: 
I have seen this species fully 8,500 feet high in the Hima- 
layahs. Mr. R. Thompson says: “The Neophrons are to be 
found breeding in numbers along the precipices which crown the 
river Kosilla from Khyrna upwards. On the sandstone preci- 
pices of the Sewaliks, and those of the Kamaon and Ghurwal 
outer ranges, numberless nests may be found. One pair breeds 
yearly on a precipice south-east of Nynee Tal.’ 
