BONELLI'S EAGLE. 85 
a rat, and he may prove a 'tartar,' for the bird struggles and flaps 
its wings as though in distress. By letting the rat fall to the ground, 
however, and then swooping after him, the combat is soon decided in 
favour of the Eagle. They occasionally let rabbits fall in the same 
way." 
"On the 8th. of March, Denison, myself, and a friend rode out to 
look at a wild place in the crags near the pine-wood where I had 
seen Griffon Vultures apparently breeding in March, 1871, and where 
we hoped to see them again. We saw no Vultures, but found one 
nest that might have belonged to them. It was in a hole near the 
top of a low cliff, built of sticks and rags, but contained no trace of 
eggs or young. As we had not much time we were just coming 
away, when to our delight, on cracking my whip, a large bird was 
seen coming out of a hole in another cliff. We soon got to the nest, 
which contained two eggs. We afterwards got a good view of the 
birds, which were A. Bonellii. Here was a prize indeed! I need 
not say the eggs were soon blown, and transferred to our handkerchiefs 
for transmission home. I chose the richer-coloured egg of the two — 
a splendid specimen; length two inches and twenty-three thirty-seconds, 
breadth two inches and seven thirty-seconds, nearly elliptical, the 
reddish brown markings rather thick at one end, and sparingly distri- 
buted over the other." (This egg is the one which I have figured. — 
C.E.B.) 
"The nest was built on a ledge of rock close to the top of a cliff 
some fifty feet above the ground-level, very neatly made of small twigs 
lined with dry rushes and grasses. It was overshadowed by a stunted 
wild olive tree, and so well was it concealed, and so well did it 
harmonize with the live twigs and vegetation in the vicinity, that we 
should never have found it had we not seen the old bird fly out. 
Poor Bonelli! that was an unlucky crack of my whip for you, but 
quite the reverse for the Partridges and rabbits among those crags." 
"The eggs were considerably incubated, but would not apparently 
have been hatched for another ten days or a fortnight. The interior 
of the shell was of a delicate emerald green, as shown when we cut 
out an oval bit to remove the foetus/' (This colour is common to 
the interior of all the Eagles' eggs. — C. R. B.) 
My friend Major Irby informs me that no Bonelli's Eagle dare 
build its -nest within five miles of another, so that each nest has a 
country to hunt for food of five miles radius! 
We extract the following interesting remarks about this bird from 
Mr. Jerdon's contributions to the "Madras Journal," and his "Illus- 
trations of Indian Ornithology:" — "The Mhorungah (its Hindustani 
