ANIMAL LIFE ALONG THE JUMNA. 61 



We found the first nest against the side of a cliff, about forty 

 feet from the ground and thirty from the top, killed the old bird 

 upon the nest, and then we wanted the eggs. As I expected, ray 

 men were each afraid to be let down from above, so I went myself. 

 When I had put one leg through a loop tied firmly at the end of 

 our strongest rope, four of my men lowered me over the top of the 

 bank and slowly paid out the rope, until I reached the nest and 

 stood safely on the narrow ledge, upon which it was bviilt. It con- 

 tained two eggs of a dirty gray color, minutely dotted over with 

 dull brownish red. One of them measured 2.65 inches by 1.90. 



The nest was a remarkable conglomeration of materials. The 

 groundwork was an armful of twigs from the thorny acacia, some 

 of great size considering the smallness of the bird, and upon this 

 was laid a bunch of long, black Hindoo hair (cut from the head of 

 some man going into mourning), a square foot of dried goat-skin, a 

 human humerus, buffalo and goat's hair, cotton in small quanti- 

 ties, a dorsal jilate, two metacai'pal bones, and eight inches of cau- 

 dal vertebrtB from some of our gavials, the back of a sheep's skull, 

 an assorted lot of rope fragments, and rags of every color and de- 

 gree of dirtiness. No wonder the builder of such a nest is called 

 the scavenger vulture. 



The next time we found a nest, the boatmen let down the rope 

 from the top of the cliff to the bottom, and one who was drawn 

 from below up to the nest, put the eggs into the empty case belong- 

 ing to my field-glass, and lowered them down safely. This stout 

 leathern case made an excellent receptacle for bird's eggs when 

 hung over the shoulders of a man hanging against the face of the 

 cliff 



A few yards from the vulture's nest, stuck against the cliff like 

 a huge houej'-comb of mud, was a cluster of about thirty nests of 

 the Indian cliff swallow [Lagenoplastes fiuvicola). The proprietors 

 of the place were at home, and in their breeding season. By the 

 aid of the rope we soon reached the colony of retort-shaped, tube- 

 mouthed nests, and secured a goodly number of eggs. The num- 

 ber of eggs in a nest was usually three, although four were found 

 together more than once, all pure white. 



Wherever the deep and barren ravines came down to the river, 

 peacocks were numerous, and we often heard their piercing cry of 

 " pee-goo-ee " ringing from the tops of the barren ridges. Late in 

 the evening they would appear ujDon the tops of the cliffs, poise 

 upon the edge, and launching off one by one, fly across the river 



