GYPS. ] 99 



Family VULTURID^E. 



Gyps fulvescsns, Hume. The Bay Vulture. 

 Gyps f ulvescens, Hume ; Hume, Rough Draft N. fy E. no. 3 bis. 



The Bay Vulture breeds, doubtless, all over the drier and more 

 desert portions of Sindh, Rajpootana, the Punjab, the Xorth-west 

 and Central Provinces. 



Of its nidification I can say little. Mr. E-. Thompson informs 

 me that on the Satpoora range of the Central Provinces it breeds 

 in January and February, building a large platform stick-nest on 

 the lofty sal trees that there abound. 80 far as my own experience 

 goes, it breeds in February and the first half of March. Its nest, 

 a huge platform of sticks, was placed, in the only three instances 

 which I know of, near the top of a very large peepul (Ficus religiosa) 

 tree. Both uests that I found were solitary, as was that found 

 by Colonel C. H. T. Marshall. The nests are between 2'5 and 3 

 feet in diameter, some 6 to 10 inches in depth, constructed of 

 sticks and twigs, and without any lining. The nests that I found 

 on the 12th and 21st March contained a single young bird each. 

 It is to Colonel Marshall that I owe the only egg I possess. He 

 says : " The nest was found on the 14th March on the top of a 

 large peepul-tree (some 40 feet from the ground), in the Shah- 

 baloul gardens near Lahore. It contained a single egg nearly 

 ready to hatch off, the bill of the young one being actually pro- 

 truding." 



The egg is a very perfect oval, a good deal larger than that of 

 Otoyyps calvus or Pseudoyyps benyalensis, and the texture appears 

 to be finer than that of the eggs of any of our other Indian 

 Vultures. jSTo positive conclusion, however, can be arrived at 

 from the examination of a single egg. 



The egg is of the usual Vult urine type, pale bluish white, but 

 with a faint gloss ; it is altogether unspotted, but was extensively 

 soiled and discoloured from the droppings of the parent bird. It 

 measures 3'5 by 2-8 inches. 



Major Bingham more recently found a nest of this Vulture. 

 He says : " On the 18th March I found a nest of this Vulture 

 placed on a solitary peepul, standing in the middle of a plain not 

 far from the left bank of the Jumna, opposite the village of 

 Wuzeerabad. The nest was a large rough unlined structure of 

 boughs and branches, larger than, but very like that of, P. ben- 

 galensis. It contained a single hard-set dirty-white egg, which 

 measured 3'78 inches by 2-68 inches. I shot the old female as 

 she moved off the nest." 



