Oh the hreeding of Elanus, Melanojderns. 25 



The eggs are figured by . Bree from specimens which Mr. 

 Tristram obtained in Algeria, where the bird itself appears to be 

 rare. In Europe, it would not seem to breed, though it is said 

 to be a regular visitant to Greece and to occur as a stragg*ler 

 throughout the sovith of Europe. According to the figures, the 

 eggs measure 1*75 by 1-38 inches and 1-66 by 1"39 inches. The 

 one has a bluish, the other adult creamy- white, g-i-ound. Both are 

 somewhat sparingly streaked and blotched with a pale yellowish 

 brown, and one exhibits besides a few deep brownish red blotches. 



Mr. Tristram remarks, that " these eggs are interesting as 

 corroborating by their character the position of the species be- 

 tween Astitr and Buteo. 



To. me these eggs of ours do not appear to have the slightest 

 affinity for those of either AsUir or Buteo. They are much more 

 like kestrel's and still more, as already observed, like miniature 

 Neojjhrons. In Egypt the birds clearly lay eggs like ours, and 

 not like those from Algeria. Mr. Shelly, who took a nest there, 

 remarks, {Ibis, 1870, page 149.) " On the 28th of March, having 

 seen a bird flying along a row of these trees, we walked up to 

 the spot, and presently heard the cry of its mate which we 

 thus discovered sitting on its nest placed at the top of a young 

 Mimosa, about twenty feet from the ground. The nest contained 

 four eggs, about the size of a kestrel's, and varying considerably 

 in color, some being as dark as kestrel's eggs, while others shew 

 much of the dark ground between the blotches.''' 



And again, speaking of another nest, loc. cit., he says, " On 

 the 80th March, at Boosh, we found another nest of this bird, 

 situated on the end of a bough at the top ot a high Mimosa. 

 Owing to the difficulty in reaching it, we unfortunately broke 

 the four eggs it contained. They were hard-set, but in colour 

 exactly resembled the nestful we brought back from Egypt." 



I can scarcely believe that Mr. Tristram's eggs really belonged 

 to this species. They are so veiy much larger, and so entirely 

 differently coloured, to those obtaixied both in India and Egypt ; 

 at the same time it is only right to note that Lieut. Burgess 

 (Pro. Zool. Soc. 1854, page 3, the only Indian observer who 

 has, so far as I have been able to ascertain, made any record 

 of the nidification of this species) remarks : " But A. F. 

 Davidson, Esq., of the Ke venue Survey, a great sportsman and 

 accurate observer of birds, told me, that he obtained a young 

 bird of this species and two eggs. The eggs were of a pure white 

 colour, and about as large as the egg of the Indian blue pigeon. 

 They were laid during the month of December." 



Le Vaillant again tells us, that it lays four or five white eggs. 

 So it is within the ^limits of pqssibility that the eggs of this 



