118 FALCONIDJE. 



It seems probable that this species breeds in the plains of India 

 in suitable localities. In the jheel-studded tract of country lying 

 partly in the Mynpooree and partly in the Etawah District, I, 

 many years ago, shot a largo adult and saw several others quite at 

 the close of May. An unusually heavy rainfall had filled all the 

 lakes, or, as we should call them in Norfolk, broads, to overflowing, 

 and the unsettled state of the country had, in a great measure, 

 prevented the customary agricultural drain on them, and many of 

 them, commonly dry at this season, were still extensive sheets of 

 water. I can scarcely doubt that these birds bred there that 

 year. 



In Oudh, native fowlers informed me that they bred in swampy 

 grounds, Trans-G-ogra. Mr. E. H. Blewifct, writing from Jhansie, 

 in the neighbourhood of which there are several considerable lakes, 

 says that he has procured the Marsh-Harrier there throughout the 

 hot weather and rains. 



Astur palumtarius (Linn.). The Goshawk. 



Astur palumbarius (Linn.*), Jerd. B. 2nd. i, p. 45 ; Hume, Rough 

 Draft N. $ E. no. 21. 



The G-oshawk breeds in India, so far as I have been able to 

 ascertain, only in the higher regions of the Himalayas, in the 

 immediate neighbourhood of the snows. 



Two eggs of this species which I possess were found in a nest 

 about 40 feet from the ground, in a deodar-tree in Bussahir, on the 

 15th of April, at an elevation of about 9000 feet. They are short, 

 broad ovals, slightly compressed towards one end, glossless, of a 

 greyish-white colour. They were much incubated, and one of 

 them is a great deal mottled and spotted with faint brown stains, 

 whether natural or the result of dirt during incubation, I do not 

 know. Held up against the light, the shells are a bright sea- 

 green. These eggs were taken by a native, whom I have always 

 found reliable in the matter of eggs, and brought to me along with 

 one of the parent birds, the female. I have myself no doubts as 

 to their authenticity. 



They measure 2-2 by 1-78 inch and 2'1 by 1/7 inch. 



A pair of very young birds \vere brought late in July, while I 

 was at Simla, for the Rajah of Putialla, from near the Chor, and 

 the shikaree asserted that he had taken them out of a nest placed 

 near the top of some kind of fir or pine tree. 



Mr. R. Thompson, an enthusiastic falconer by the way, tells me 

 that "they breed from March to June, building on trees a large 

 circular nest of coarse twigs, in which they lay three or four 

 nearly pure white eggs. They confine themselves peculiarly to the 

 interior of the deep, precipitous, woody valleys, lying close to the 

 snowy peaks. They usually, I am told, select a birch-tree, Alnus 

 loojputtia, or Cupressus tomentosa, to build their nests on. 



" During this period the birds are very daring, and will readily 



