217 
No. 88. Circaetus Gallicus, Guet. 
Tue SHort-Torp Hace. 
The Short-toed Eagle lays in the plains of Upper India in 
January, February, and March, and, according to Mr. R. 
Thompson, in April and May in the Gurhwal forests. 
As arule, its nest is placed on trees, but on two occasions in 
the Etawah district, we have found this species breeding on 
small platforms, in the face of the high clay cliffs of the Jumna. 
In different localities, it varies in its choice of trees; where 
trees are plentiful, it will build on the topmost boughs of a very 
tall one, while in the bare country, in Hwrriana, and in Wes- 
tern Rajpootana, you will find the nest not half way up some 
stunted Neem tree, or scraggy thorny Acacia, a mere apology 
for a tree. 
The nest is a large circular stick structure, some two to three 
feet in diameter and from six inches to a foot in depth, externally 
very loose and straggling, but composed of rather slighter ma- 
terials than Fulvescens generally uses, and with a rather deeper 
internal depression. 
Some nests are entirely devoid of lining, rather finer twigs 
compose the floor of the internal depression and on these the 
egg reposes. Some nests again have the egg bedded in straw 
and grass, positively as 1f packed to travel; under some I have 
found a few green leaves spread, after the fashion of Bonelli’s 
Hagle, and under many, a little grass. There appears to be no 
rule in this matter, season does not affect the question, nor, as 
far as I can see, locality ; in the early part of January, and late 
in March, in the Agra and Sirsa districts, and in the far west 
beyond Jodhpoor, I have observed the same diversities in the 
“internal arrangements’’ of the nests. 
I have taken a great number of the nests of this species, and 
many of my friends have found them also, but in no instance 
out of between forty and fifty recorded cases, did any of us 
meet with more than a single egg in the same nest. 
The eggs of this bird are typically broad ovals with a slight- 
ly pyriform tendency. ‘They are of a pale bluish white colour; 
bluer than those of any other of our Indian species of Eagle, 
and are, to judge from a very large series, invariably spotless : 
moreover they seldom appear to be discoloured during the pro- 
cess of incubation in the way most other Hagles’ eggs are. In 
my whole collection, only one egg isin any way as small as that 
figured by Dr. Bree, and more than one are all but as large as 
