1871.] RAPTORIAL BIRDS OF INDIA. 681 



The Jugger breeds in high trees, in the absence of cliffs, during 

 January and February, laying usually four eggs. In size they are 

 intermediate between those of F. peregrinus and F. islandicus, and 

 not unlike Hewitson's plate of that bird's egg. I have never seen 

 this Falcon build its own nest on trees, but have invariably found it 

 take possession of the old nests of Gyps bengalensis or of Mihus 

 govinda. Generally speaking, it is not even relined ; but it is worth 

 mentioning that one nest examined in my presence, in which the 

 .eggs were tolerably well incubated, was comfortably and warmly 

 lined with several handfuls of small feathers. Did the birds in- 

 stinctively make their habitation comfortable for the reception of 

 their expected progeny, or were the feathers collected accidentally 1 

 I am inclined to think the latter was the case, as in all the nests ex- 

 amined by me this season the female bird has betrayed her where- 

 abouts by making a plaintive cry, as Falcons do when hungry, and I 

 am under the impression that the male caters for her during the 

 season of incubation, and hence this accumulation of feathers in the 

 nest. I shot a pair off the nest, the female of which was in the 

 brown or juvenile plumage, probably a second year's bird, while the 

 male was an old one. The Jugger is indeed a dirty bird, and 

 swarms with huge disgusting parasites nearly half an inch long, 

 which I have never noticed on any other Falcon. 



16. Lithofalco CHiauERA, Daud. (The Toorumtee or Red- 

 headed Merlin.) 



Is universally distributed. Breeds generally in February and 

 March. The few nests discovered by me I attribute solely to the 

 fuss made by these little Falcons, as they are most pugnacious and 

 noisy during the breeding-season, actually attacking Kites and Crows 

 at a considerable distance from the tree they have monopolized. On 

 two occasions my tent happened to be pitched in a mango-tope 

 where a pair of Toorumtees were busy building ; and I found them a 

 perfect nuisance, as they were incessantly darting out and driving 

 away all manner of imaginable enemies. The nest is generally 

 placed in a leafy clump, near the top of a tree (by preference the 

 mango), and it is by no means easy of detection. Four is the usual 

 complement of eggs they lay ; and in size and appearance some in my 

 collection would easily do duty for those of Falco subbuteo as 

 figured by Hewitson. On the whole there appears to be the same 

 relation between the eggs of this bird and of the Jugger Falcon as 

 there is between those of the Peregrine and the Kestrel. 



Mr. Hume states that he has "as yet obtained no egg earlier than 

 the 15th of February"*. It is, indeed, strange that the only three 

 nests taken by me were all before that date — one of them actually 

 as early as the 9th of January last. One of these three deserves 

 special notice. I was returning home late on the evening of the 

 4th of February last, when my attention was attracted by the familiar 

 cry of one of these birds, which I found was attacking a common 

 Kite in the most furious manner, at a considerable height in the air. 

 * Rough Notes, part i. p. 91. 



