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remarks that it “begins to breed in March, some laying as 
late as the commencement of May; during the whole breeding 
season, the screaming and noise the birds make, betray the situa- 
tion of the nest. This latter is usually found in lofty precipices 
of the lower Himalayan ranges; it is placed on a ledge of rock, 
often inside the hole left by the falling out from the softer 
sandstone matrix, of a water worn boulder, or nodule of 
igneous rock. I know several eyries to which the birds yearly 
resort; one in the Kotree Dhoon, another in the gorge of the 
Ramgunga, where it first leaves the hills, and a third close to 
Kthoorpa Tal, near to and below Nynee Tal. I have noticed 
the young birds following their parents late in June, and early 
in July.” 
To my friend, Capt. Cock of Dhurumsalla, I owe the eggs, 
and an undoubted specimen of the female of this bird. He 
gives a most interesting account of his operations. He found 
the nest on a ledge of rock on the face of a most dangerous pre- 
cipice. ‘The nest had for many years been occupied by the Black 
Cap, but in 1868, one of the large Himalayan Vultures, G. 
Fulvus, or if distinct, G. Himalayensis, (vide supra No. 3,) laid 
there, and had to surrender its eggs to Captain Cock. This 
year (1869) the Falcons again took possession, and on the 10th 
of March, this gentleman again visited it. ‘‘ I went,’ he says, 
“to the Falcon’s nest, and found the female sitting close: with 
great difficulty I got her off by throwing stones down from above, 
but even then she did not fly, but only shifted her position on 
the ledge, so as to show me two eggs in the nest. I got men and 
ropes, and a friend, Captain Duff, to shoot her as she left the 
nest, but though I, with great difficulty, induced a man to de- 
scend and take the eggs, (after I had all but gone over the preci- 
pice myself, a tuft of grass, having given way under my foot at 
the very verge,) the female got off scathless or but shghtly wound- 
ed, owing to the height of the precipice. Captain Duff who has 
a house hard by, tells me that the birds are always killing the 
blue rock Pigeons under his very nose. Both birds showed 
themselves, but neither came sufficiently within shot to enable 
us to bag them, though we fired at the female.” On the 17th 
March, he returned to the nest where the female was again 
sitting, on driving her off he saw that another egg had been 
laid, and he again fired at the old bird, but owing to the hazar- 
dous position in which he was standing at the time, again miss- 
ed her. On the 20th he revisited the eyrie. “I was sitting 
under the cliff when a Lammergeyer came sailing by and the 
male Falcon dashed at him, and then returned to the nest, the 
female flying out in pursuit. As she returned I shot her; the 
