52 Mr. E. C. Stuart Baker on the [Ibis, 



one which was in the collection of Mr. J. C. Parker, and 

 which was secured by me at his death, together with the skin 

 of the female. This was taken on the 16th of April, 1883, 

 somewhere in Kashmir, but the only note on skin and egg 

 wa.s^' Sjiilornis rutherfordi 16/4/83," and an indecipherable 

 word, which looks like Kooloo. On the back of the ticket 

 is " Shot off nest with one egg very hard-set.^' 



The skin and e^^ are both undoubtedly those of the Black 

 Eagle, and the name inscribed, though in Mr. Parker's own 

 handwriting, is assuredly only a clerical error, as not only 

 was Mr. Parker a good ornithologist, but I had previously 

 corresponded with him about this very egg under its proper 

 name. The nest, he informed me, was built on a fir-tree 

 on a cliff-side. 



I found this fine Eagle breeding in the mountain ranges 

 south of the Brahmapootra, and first took its egg in north 

 Cachar. Previously I had found a nest containing a 

 youngster in down, so the following year I went out to , 

 investigate about six weeks earlier, and was lucky enough 

 to find a fresh egg. This was left for four days to see if 

 another would be laid, and then taken. 



The nest was a huge affair of sticks lined with green 

 leaves, and was placed high up in a lar^e tree in deep ever- 

 green forest, at an elevation of about 5500 feet. Like all 

 other nests which I have seen, this one was built on a tree 

 standing in a very rugged country, but was not particularly 

 hard to get at owing to the tree being covered with a net- 

 work of the " elephant creeper " and other plants, which 

 made climbing an easy matter. The tree itself grew on the 

 side of a very narrow ridge, joining two hills together, and 

 forming a narroAv bridle-path, some three or four feet wide, 

 Avhich zig-zagged its rocky and difficult way from one Naga 

 village to another. Looking over the edge of this path on 

 one side, one could see through the straggling tree-tops 

 into a depth below of many hundreds of feet, the drop being 

 almost sheer, and the trees seeming to hang on by their 

 roots in the most precarious way between jutting boulders 

 and rocks. On the other side, though not quite so sheer. 



