191 8,] Nidification of some Indian Falconidce. 55 



difficulty in persuading him to continue his climb up to the 

 nest, and had eventually to fire at and wound one of the 

 birds before they would desist from their attacks. 



" This egg was much incubated, but I managed to clean 

 it, and it is the one you now have in your collection. 



" I was in Danga Gali in 1905, but failed to find the birds 

 or their nest ; Buchanan, however, had taken an egg exactly 

 similar to mine some years previously from the same hill- 

 side, so it is probable that the pair had bred there for many 

 years." 



Mr. J. Stewart, who has taken many nests of this Eagle 

 in Travancore, gives the birds the same reputation for 

 bravery in defence of their homes and young, and tells me 

 that it is frequently necessary to frighten the birds off with 

 gunfire before they will allow the native climbers to get up 

 to the nests. 



This gentleman has sent me home a mass of interesting 

 notes about this Eagle, from which I have compiled the 

 following information. 



Many pairs have two nests, which they use apparently 

 without any definite rule to guide them. Sometimes they 

 occupy the same nest year after year, and then suddenly for 

 no obvious reason leave it, and use the other nest, returning 

 again to the first after a yearns absence. Sometimes they will 

 occupy alternate nests in alternate seasons, and, generally, 

 when their eggs or young are taken will leave the robbed 

 nest and lay for the second time in their other home. Even 

 in this, however, one cannot prophesy with any certainty as 

 to their movements, and more than once Mr. Stewart has 

 taken a second egg from the same nest in one and the same 

 season. Another curious thing is that these birds are very 

 irregular in their laying, and frequently it would seem as 

 if they miss a year^'s laying altogether. After his long 

 residence in the southern part of Travancore, Mr. Stewart 

 says : — 



" I think I know practically every pair of birds and their 

 nests within a radius of many miles, and often I have known 

 birds resort to their nests, play about with them, do a lew 



