102 BUBONIDJE. 



heard of four being met with. In two instances, I see by my 

 notes that single fully incubated eggs were found. 



In this species I have invariably found the female sitting, but 

 the male is always near at hand, and very commonly sitting on 

 some branch immediately above the nest. I once shot a female 

 sitting on a partly incubated egg, and on skinning her found a 

 second egg in the oviduct ready for expulsion. I have repeatedly 

 taken one perfectly fresh and one partially incubated egg out of the 

 same nest, and it seems clear that these birds, like the Harriers 

 and many Owls, begin to sit directly the first egg is laid. 



Colonel Butler writes : " Sulckur, 24th January, 1879, a nest in 

 the fork of a kundee-tree about 30 feet from the ground. It 

 consisted of ordinary sticks like an old Kite's nest, and the tree 

 upon which it was built was bare and leafless, recalling to mind the 

 figure of the nest of Ketupa ceylonensis in Colonel Marshall's book 

 on ' Bird's-nesting in India.' The tree upon which the nest was 

 built was growing in the middle of a thick group of bare thorny trees, 

 with a clump of date-palms close by, in which the cock bird concealed 

 himself. The hen bird sat close, allowing the boy who ascended 

 the tree to approach within a yard of her before she left the nest. 

 From below she was not visible when sitting, but at a distance of 

 40 or 50 yards from the tree her cat-like head could be seen 

 occasionally raised above the top of the nest. The nest contained 

 a solitary fresh egg, and strange to say, after it was taken, the hen 

 bird sat closelv for at least a fortnight without laying again, allowing 

 me to visit the nest frequently during that period without forsaking 

 it." 



Mr. Scrope Doig writes from Sind : " Found nests on 15th 

 and 21st February, that contained young ones, two in each.'' 



Mr. J. Davidson, writing of this species in Khaudesh, says : 

 " Probably a permanent resident, but scarce. I only came across 

 it twice, in both cases in December, breeding." 



Lieut. H. E. Barnes, writing of Eajpootana in general, says : 

 " The Dusky Horned Owl breeds during December and January." 



Mr. C. J. W. Taylor, writing from Manzeerabad in Mysore, re- 

 marks : " I shot a female off her nest, a mass of sticks, laid be- 

 tween two immense arms of a mango-tree ; the nest contained one 

 hard- set egg. This was in April 1882." 



Mr. J. E. Cripps writes : " On the deserted ryot's holding, 

 where I found a nest of Aquila hastata, and on a tamarind-tree 

 within 50 yards of the latter nest, was one of this Owl containing 

 a young bird, whose quill- feathers were a couple of inches long. 

 This tamarind-tree stood about 100 yards off the public road, and 

 the nest was placed about 40 feet off the ground in the centre of 

 the tree. It was a huge structure of sticks and twigs, more in fact 

 than a man could carry ; no lining, but the nest contained the 

 remains of a young Urrua and the heads of 15 young Corvus levail- 

 lantii, which had evidently supplied many a meal to the young 

 monster. There were also the shells of ever so many Crows' eggs in 

 the nest ; the smell from all this was very offensive. The female 



