100 BTJBONIDjE. 



" I found two fresh eggs on 16th December. 



two fresh eggs 21st March. 



four half-fledged young 26th 

 two fresh eggs 28th 



two young birds 3rd April. 



four set eggs 3rd 



four fresh eggs 16th 



" The birds keep close to water as a rule, and the male bird 

 seldom wanders far when the female is sitting ; they seldom perch 

 on trees, and, during the breeding-season, the male bird may be 

 seen sitting on the top of the bank, somewhere near the nest, at 

 all hours of the day. They are rather shy birds, and leave the 

 nest at once if approached." 



Captain Hutton remarks that this species is " common along 

 the foot of the hills in the Doon ; I have had the young ones in 

 March from a hole in a steep bank of a ravine at Eajpur ; in April, 

 also, a man brought word that he had found a nest, with nothing 

 in it, but it was only just completed ; waited for a fortnight, and 

 sent a man to bring the eggs, but it again proved blank. The 

 bird ascends sometimes in the summer to 5500 feet." 



Captain Cock wrote long ago : " Coming home on the 17th 

 March, at Dhurumsala, I took a nest of Bubo bengalensis with eggs. 

 I shot the old bird. The nest was in a little cave in the face of a 

 steep precipice, full of little bones of rats and mice, one or two 

 feathers, and only a slight depression in the sandy floor. Eggs 

 hard-set." 



Dr. Jerdon says : "I have found its nest on a well-shaded 

 ledge on the south side of a ravine, where the light of the sun 

 could not penetrate at that season, viz., March. It lays two or 

 three white eggs." 



Major Bingham. remarks : " I once found a nest of this common 

 Owl on the 5th January in a small cave in the high bank of a 

 nullah the other side of the Jumna from Delhi. Nest there was 

 none ; the eggs, two in number, rested on the bare ground. The 

 cave was about a foot deep, and overhung by a caper bush.'* 



Mr. Benjamin Aitken writes : " A pair of these birds had a 

 nest on the bank of the river at Akola, Berar, in February, 1870 

 and 1871." 



Messrs. Davidson and Weiiden, writing of the Deccan, say: 

 " Common along all the brooks and rivers. Found numerous 

 nests (facing all points of the compass) in Kovember and December. 

 Six was the greatest number of young or eggs observed in one 

 nest. All the eggs, with the exception of one, which lay on a bare 

 ledge of rock, were found in naturally formed holes in clay 

 banks." 



Mr. Gr. Vidal, referring to the South Konkan, writes : "Eather 

 common on the rocky hill-sides overhanging the tidal creeks. Two 

 nests were found in January, both in fissures between steep 

 boulders on the sides of hills. In one nest there were five, and 

 in one only two young birds. One of the nests faced due east, a 



