PALLAS' 8 SLA EAGLE. 109 
this bird, which I am sorry I cannot quote more at length. "They 
build in large trees, which are almost invariably solitary, situated on 
the banks of some river or considerable Jheel. 
The nest is a huge platform of sticks, some of which are often as 
thick as a man's arm, with a superstructure of thinner sticks and twigs, 
and with only a slight depression towards the interior, which is lined 
with fine twigs and green leaves occasionally intermingled with rushes 
and straw. The nest is usually placed in a broad fork near the very 
top of the tree, on branches that seem scarcely strong enough to support 
the huge mass, and is sometimes occupied by the same pair for many 
successive seasons. The nest is always new built by the bird itself. 
The work of construction is most laborious, and I watched a pair for 
a full month. Nothing can seem rougher or more rugged than their 
nest when finished, and yet out of every four sticks and branches that 
they brought they rejected and threw down at least three. Both birds 
brought materials, and side by side the pair would work away throwing 
down almost as many sticks as they had brought; then apparently they 
would quarrel over the matter and there would be a great squealing, 
and one would fly away and sit sulky on some cliff point near at hand; 
after a time the one left on the nest would go off in quest of materials. 
Immediately the other would drop softly on the nest and be very busy 
(though what it did except lift a stick and put it down in the same 
place, it was impossible, even with a good glass to make out) till the 
absent bird returned, not unfrequently with a fish instead of a stick. 
It is a curious fact, but I have observed it repeatedly, that if the 
female, which is much the largest, brought the fish to the nest, the male 
set to work on it at once without so much as "By your leave," 
while if the male brought it, the female used to eye it, sidle gradually 
up, and only take slow and modest mouthfuls. When however the 
female begins to sit, the male will bring her fish or fowl and go off 
for other food for himself, not attempting to share it with her: and 
when not on the nest, neither seems to presume to interfere with the 
other's captures without permission. The usual number of eggs laid 
by this species is three, but I have myself twice found four, and it is 
not at all uncommon to meet with only two eggs fully incubated or 
two young ones in a nest." 
"Typically the eggs of this species are rather a broad oval, but a 
good deal of variation both in size and shape occurs. I have one or 
two very long and one very broad pyriform egg, but these are ex- 
ceptions. The colour is greyish white, and every specimen I have seen 
(and some fifty have passed through my hands) has been absolutely 
unspotted," 
