CIBCAfcTUS. 151 



The nest is a large circular stick structure, some 2 or 3 feet in 

 diameter and from 6 inches to a foot in depth, externally very 

 loose and straggling, but composed of rather slighter materials than 

 A. vindhiana generally uses, and with a rather deeper internal 

 depression. 



Some nests are entirely devoid of lining, rather finer twigs com- 

 pose the floor of the internal depression and on these the egg 

 reposes. Some nests again have the egg bedded in straw and grass, 

 positively as if packed to travel ; under some I have found a few 

 green leaves spread, after the fashion of Bonelli's Eagle, and under 

 many a little grass. There appears to be no rule in this matter, 

 season does not affect the question, nor, as far as I can see, locality ; 

 in the early part of January and late in March, in the Agra and 

 Sirsa Districts, and in the far west beyond Jodhpoor, I have observed 

 the same diversities in the internal arrangements of the nests. 



1 have taken a great number of the nests of this species and 

 many of my friends have found them also ; but in no instance out 

 of between forty and fifty recorded cases did any of us meet with 

 more than a single egg in the same nest. 



When deprived of their egg, the Short-toed Eagles will hang for 

 weeks about their desolated homestead, but apparently they never 

 lay a second time, as many other species do. 



Mr. W. Blewitt informs me that he took nine nests of this bird 

 in the neighbourhood of Hansie between the 1 8th January and the 

 26th February, and four between the 6th and 26th of March. 

 Some of the eggs were fresh ; some more or less incubated ; but 

 no nest contained more than a single egg. Eleven of the nests 

 were on keekur (Acacia arabica) trees, one on a jhand (Prosopis 

 spicigem} tree, and one on a seeshum (Dalbergia sissoo). The nests 

 were placed at heights varying from 14 to 22 feet from the 

 ground. 



They were composed of twigs of the keekur, kheyr (Acacia 

 catechii), and native plum (Zizyphus jujuba). They varied in dia- 

 meter from. 14 to 24 inches, excluding straggling ends, and in 

 thickness from 4 to 8 inches. Some were slightly and loosely put 

 together ; others were very densely and closely constructed. Most 

 of them appeared to have no lining ; but three were thinly lined 

 with straw, two with leaves, and one with fine grass. 



Colonel Gr. E. L. Marshall writes to me : " Of this bird I have 

 found but one nest. I found it on the 13th of March with one egg, 

 and left it till the 6th April, in hopes that more would be laid, 

 and when I took it at last, it was rather hard-set, so that probably 

 the bird lays but one egg. The nest was in a seeshum-tree, so 

 high up among the smaller branches that I reached it with difficulty ; 

 it was made of twigs and so loose in structure that I could see 

 that there was only one egg from below, before I had reached the 

 nest. The egg was well-shaped and pure dull white." 



Mr. E. Thompson, writing from G-urhwal, says that the situation 

 of the nest is " usually on the highest branches of a tall tree, in a 

 moderately wooded country, and mostly in one standing by itself." 



