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majority lay in February ; a few only breeding in the previous 
and succeeding months. Lower down country, they are, I be- 
lieve, earlier, and I myself have taken eges as early as Christmas 
day. In the districts bordering on the bases of the Himalayahs, 
March is the more general time, while in the Himalayahs, 
where our bird is common up to a height of six or seven thou- 
sand feet, they mostly lay in April and May. Everywhere, 
stragglers breed earlier and later, by nearly six weeks, than the 
great body of the birds do, so that even in the neighbourhood 
of Agra, we have eges recorded as early as the 29th December, 
and as late as the 15th April. In Bareilly, I took a nest of 
fresh egos, on the 9th May, and at Simlah found three much- 
incubated ones, as late as the first week in June. They build 
almost without exception on trees, but I have found two nests 
(out of many hundreds that I have examined) placed, Neophron 
like, on the cornices of ruins. ; 
The nest, mostly placed in a fork, but not uncommonly laid 
on a flat bough, is a large clumsy mass, of sticks and twigs, the 
sively narrow, dark, shaft stripe ; and with a very narrow, paler stripe, on 
each side of this, towards the tips. The whole of the rest of the upper parts 
anstriped brown, very dark upon the first few primaries, and much paler on 
the tertials and lesser wing coverts. ‘The tail tinged with grey and with 
obscure traces of transverse darker bars; many of the lesser coverts and of 
the tertials, as well as most of the upper tail coverts and the tail feathers 
themselves, narrowly, but somewhat obscurely, tipped paler. The chin and 
throat whity brown, the shafts more or less conspicuously darker. The 
breast, abdomen, lower tail coverts, and tibial plumes, dull hair brown, dark 
shafted, or with narrow, dark, central, shaft stripes ; those of the breast, with 
narrow, pale stripes, on each side of the shaft stripes, towards the tips; the 
rest, in many birds, with a pale spot towards the tips. 
In some specimens, the whole upper plumage is greyer, the chin and 
throat are white instead of whity brown, under parts are more of an umber 
brown, and the pale stripes on either side the shaft stripes, are pale dull rufous. 
The tippings of the feathers of the back, scapulars, upper tail coverts, and 
tail, a purer white, and better defined, and the paler brown, median coverts 
of the wing, have a conspicuous, though very narrow, dark brown, shaft 
stripe. In all, the shafts of the lower-tail coverts are dark. 
2nd.—The young bird has the whole head, neck, breast, abdomen, and 
sides, umber brown, each feather with a conspicuous, broad, fulvous yellow 
or buffy streak. The chin and throat, are dingy fulvous, some of the feathers 
inconspicuously darker shafted. The back, scapulars, upper tail coverts, and 
wing, (except the first few primaries which are almost black) a more or less 
rich umber brown, glossed in many cases with purple, and every feather, 
more or less narrowly tipped, with rufous or fulvous white; the tail and 
lower tail coverts, much as in the preceding. In some specimens, the light 
streaks are almost pure white, in others rufous buff. 
All intermediate stages are met with. In some, whilst the upper plumage 
is nearly that of the adult, the whole of the lower parts exhibit the white, 
yellowish white, or rufous buff, central stripes characteristic of the young. 
