114 SHORT-TOED EAGLE. 

and little, about six cents. The peasants assured me they had seen 
other nests, always with only one egg, and that this was never 
spotted.' 
Authors generally attribute two eggs to this species. He added that 
the bird feeds principally on reptiles; I have verified the truth of this 
assertion, for having opened the stomach of my bird, I found it con- 
tained a sort of ball, about the size of a partridge's egg, composed of- 
serpent's scales." 
The following is from the notes of Mr. Savile Reid, detailing the 
breeding habits of this bird at Gibraltar, 1872: — "When out with D. 
at the Monte lar Torre, on the 22nd. of May, we found two nests of 
this Eagle {Circa'etus gallicus) in two adjacent oak trees not very far 
from the old Moorish tower. Both nests were low down (from ten to 
twenty feet above the ground), and each contained a single Eaglet. 
In one nest the young bird was apparently about a fortnight old, and 
in the other about four or five days. The larder of the former con- 
tained a large snake, about two feet six inches long. The latter had 
apparently to dine upon birds, Turtle-Doves especially. Both nests 
were full of black ants feeding on the delicacies intended for the 
Eaglets. The old birds were very clamorous when their nests were 
first approached, but after a while they soared away to a vast height, 
and only one of them came near us while we examined the eyries. 
As soon, however, as we left the place they stooped down towards it.'" 
" 1873, April 29. — Jose el Malagueno brought me this day an egg 
of Circa'etus gallicus from a nest in the cork woods near Bocaleones, 
from which he had also brought me the egg in May, 1871. It was 
very slightly incubated. Length three inches and one sixteenth, breadth 
two inches and four sixteenths, rather pointed at the small end, of a 
rough texture, white, with one or two streaks of brownish red." 
"May 12th., L873. — Col. Irby's collector brought me in some eggs 
to-day, viz., one of Circa'etus gallicus being much incubated, and an 
unknown Eagle's egg. This egg puzzled me much. It was too small 
for Circa'etus, Ncevioides, Fulvus, or Imperialis, and too large for 
Pennata. What was it then? I proceeded to blow it — when I found it 
hard-set I was going to say — no, not hard-set, but hard boiled. What a 
sell! — it was the hen's egg we had left in the nest of Pennata. I 
learned one important fact from this amusing incident, namely, that 
the rufous markings on the eggs of A. pennata and probably A. ncevi- 
oides and. C. gallicus, are deposited on the surface of the egg after it 
is laid, most likely due solely to stains from the nest or food of the 
old birds. The hen's egg in question had some aquiline blotches upon 
it, and would have taken in the most knowing oologist. I have pre- 
