194 FALCONID^E. 



from which I took the young ones above mentioned was of con- 

 siderable size, made of dead sticks and placed at the top and near 

 the centre of a tall tree about 50 feet from the ground. The 

 parent birds evinced great anxiety whilst the nest was being 

 robbed, flying round and round the tree uttering their shrill 

 Kestrel-like note. Another nest, similar in structure and in an 

 exactly similar situation, near Deesa, 16th April, containing four 

 young birds almost ready to fly. 



" Belgaum District, March 1880, three fresh eggs." 

 Major C. T. Bingham, writing from Delhi, says : " On the 

 27th March I found a nest of this bird, placed on a tall slender 

 babool-tree close to a pathway leading from one of the gates of 

 Delhi." 



Mr. Benjamin Aitken sends the following note : " This note 

 should be an important addition to your * Eough Draft,' for I 

 have to record an instance of a pair of Toorumtees building in an 

 old nest, though whether their own or a Crow's, I am unable 

 to say. The nest was in the topmost twigs on one side of a very 

 large tamarind-tree at Akola, Berar. The birds took possession of 

 the nest early in September 1869, and guarded it jealously for five 

 months, often getting into the nest and allowing neither Crow nor 

 Kite to approach the tree. In February 1870, the female bird 

 seemed to be oftener in the nest than usual, though 1 had almost 

 given up watching them. On the 18th of the month a man went 

 up and found four young birds in the nest covered with down. 

 They were not disturbed, and left the nest when fully feathered. 



" I may say that this nest was in our own compound, and that 

 I saw the birds every day from September to February. They 

 were rarely away from the nest, always perching on the twigs 

 within a foot or two of it, and brought all their prey and ate it 

 there." 



Mr. J. Aitken, writing from Akola, says : " I see that you say 

 that in Upper India the Toorumtee usually builds its own nest. 

 In this neighbourhood, however, they more commonly select the 

 old nest of a Crow." 



And Messrs. Davidson and Wenden write from the Deccan : 

 " Very common, breeding abundantly all over the districts. First 

 nest observed on 28th February, and the last 28th March. Four 

 nests, each contained three fresh eggs. Some birds certainly breed 

 prior to the first date." 



The eggs vary somewhat in shape, but are generally, I think, 

 much like those of a common hen, though perhaps slightly 

 narrower and of course much smaller. In colour, they vary from 

 very pale yellowish brown, with just a few reddish-brown specks, 

 to a nearly uniform dark brownish red, obscurely mottled arid 

 blotched with a somewhat purer and darker red ; typically they 

 may be said to have a reddish-white ground, so thickly freckled 

 and speckled with dull brownish red as to leave but little of the 

 ground-colour visible. Often they have a sort of ring of more or 

 less feeble blotches near the large end, and at times a zone of 



