AQUILA. 131 



width ; it wus lined or littered with dry grass and roots. Some 

 Goojurs, who live near the steep ravine where we found the nest, 

 stated that this pair of Eagles had bred in this same nest for the 

 past three years, and that they occasionally carried off small lambs 

 and kids from their huts." 



The eggs of the Golden Eagle are, we know from European 

 examples, very variable bo th in shape and in colouring, but typically 

 they are very broad oval eggs, only slightly more obtuse at one end 

 than the other. 



In colour they vary from dull greenish white or white, absolutely 

 unspotted, to a richly blotched surface, on which but little of the 

 white ground-colour is visible amidst the massive red and brownish- 

 red or reddish-pink blotches, smears, streaks, and spots. 



The only two eggs that I possess, taken in India, which I o\ve to 

 Mr. Frederic Wilson, are the one of the Brahminy Kite's egg type, 

 dirtv white, very sparsely scratched and speckled with dirty slightly 

 reddish brown ; and the other of the Spilornis cheela type, white, 

 pretty thickly spotted and smeared all over with umber-brown, 

 which may have been redder when the egg was first taken. Both 

 are entirely devoid of gloss, but while in one the shell is compara- 

 tively smooth and close-textured, in the other it is singularly coarse 

 and rough. They measure 3'1 by 2-4 inches and 3 by 2-35. 



Aquila bifasciata, J. E. Gray. The Steppe-Eagle. 



Aquila imperialis (Bechst.}, Jerd. B. Ind. i, p. 57. 



Aquila mogihrik, Gin., Hume, Rouyh Draft N. Sf E. no. 27. 



The Steppe-Eagle breeds but sparingly in the Himalayas, from 

 Nepal westwards, and still more exceptionally in the plains of the 

 North-west. The vast majority of the multitudes of this species 

 that during the cold season throng the well-wooded and cultivated 

 portions of the plains of continental India, go further north and 

 we*t to breed. 



I have myself only found them breeding in the Upper Punjab, 

 and there only on three occasions. They lay (in the plains) in 

 February and March, and possibly April ; building a large stick 

 platform on or near the tops of trees peepul-trees in all the in- 

 stances in which I found the nest ; but also at times, like the 

 Tawny Eagle, on babool and other thorny trees. The nests that 

 1 saw were from 2 to 2-5 feet in diameter, some 6 to 8 inches thick, 

 composed of rather small sticks and lined with a few green leaves. 

 One nest contained two hard-set, another three fresh eggs, and the 

 third only one ; but from accounts received from Mr. W. Blewitt 

 and others, two appears the normal number. 



Mr. Blewitt took a nest of this species near Hansie, in the Dhana 

 Beer (a sort of preserved wilderness), on the 22nd February, 1868. 

 The female, shot on the nest, was sent tome an old, unmistakable, 

 black Eagle, with conspicuous white scapular patches, and yellowish 

 head and nape. Mr. Blewitt describes the nest as very dense and 



9* 



