266 OICONIID^E. 



Usually the nest is from 3 to 3| feet in diameter, and with a 

 considerable cavity, not so flat as a Vulture's, but with a deep 

 saucer-shaped depression. It is carefully lined with rushes, grass, 

 pieces of ban or grass-rope, water-weeds, &c. One nest that I 

 examined had a regular parapet of mud, the kind of clay we call 

 chilcnee muttee, all round the margin of the cavity, some 3 inches 

 wide and 2 inches high ; and Mr. F. R. Blewitt, who watched the 

 birds building this nest, told me that " the birds took more than a 

 month building the nest, taking immense pains to finish it off. 

 When it was nearly ready they put a sort of rim of clay all round 

 the top of it ; the old birds descended alternately to the tank and 

 brought up the mud in their bills, and then standing on the nest, 

 they seemed to manipulate and arrange it with the greatest care 

 with their long bills. These hatched off three young." 



But I have now seen scores of nests without ever seeing a second 

 similar example, so that it would appear to be quite exceptional 

 for them to use mud. 



Pour is certainly the regular complement of eggs, and one of the 

 four is very often bad, so that they much more often rear three 

 than four young ones, but I have twice found as many as five eggs 

 in a nest. 



In some cases I have known of their using the same nest year 

 after year, but my impression is that they very commonly build a 

 fresh nest each year. 



These birds have a most remarkable method of paying delicate 

 attentions,' or it may be merely of dancing. A pair will gravely 

 stalk up to each other, and when about a yard or two feet apart 

 will stand face to face, extend their long black and white wings, 

 and while they flutter these very rapidly, so that the points of the 

 wings of the one flap against the points of the other's wings, ad- 

 vance their heads till they nearly meet, and both simultaneously 

 clatter their bills like a couple of watchmen's rattles. This dis- 

 play lasts for nearly a minute, after which one walks a little apart, 

 to be followed after a moment by the other, when they repeat the 

 amusement, and so on for perhaps a dozen times. When I first 

 witnessed this curious play on the evening of the 26th December, 

 1866, two pairs performing at the same time within 50 yards of 

 each other on a sandy chur of the River Chumbul, I thought of 

 course that the performers were making arrangements for a future 

 generation, or at least that all this parade would end in some such 

 combination; but watching them closely through the glasses from 

 little more than 100 yards' distance I discovered that they never 

 actually touched each other, and after a dozen or more such flut- 

 terings they all rose and flew quietly away. 



Years ago Mr. Brooks wrote to me from Etawah : " On the 

 20th October^ 1869, we took three nests, one with four, and two 

 with two eggs each. 



" The nests were all on solitary peepul-trees in the middle of 

 plains and in no case near villages, huge stick nests at the tops of 

 trees, lined with grass and long withered water-plants. 



