SHOBT-TOED EAGLE. 115 
served it carefully as a record of a most amusing deception — a 
punishment, as it were, for my unfeeling substitution of the egg."" 
Mr. Hume, "My Scrap Book, No. L, Part 1," observes about the 
bird in India, "The Short-toed Eagle lays in the plains of Upper 
India in January, February, and March. As a rule the nest is placed 
in trees, but on two occasions in the Etawah district we have found 
the species breeding on small platforms in the face of the high clay 
cliffs of the Jumna. The nest is a large circular stick structure, some 
two or three feet in diameter, and from six to twelve inches in depth, 
externally very loose and straggling, but composed of rather slighter 
materials than that of Fulvescens, and with a rather deeper internal 
depression. Some nests are entirely devoid of lining, rather finer 
twigs compose the floor of the internal depression, and upon these 
the egg reposes. Some nests have the egg bedded in straw and 
grass, positively as if packed for travel; under some I have found a 
few green leaves spread after the fashion of Bonelli's Eagle, and under 
many, a little grass. I have taken a great number of the nests of 
this species, and many of my friends have found them also, but in no 
instance out of between forty and fifty recorded cases did any of us 
meet with more than one egg in the same nest." 
"The eggs are typically broad oval, with a slight pyriform tendency. 
They are of a pale bluish white colour; bluer than any other Indian 
Eagle, and to judge from a large series they are invariably spotless, 
and seldom discoloured by incubation. In my whole collection only 
one egg is in any way as small as that figured by Dr. Bree, and more 
than one are all but as large as the egg of the Bald Eagle, figured 
on the same plate. The colour of the shell in this species when held 
up to the light is a peculiarly bright sap green, very different from 
the deep green of H. leucoryplms, or the sea green of Fulvescens. In 
size they vary from 2.65 to 3.15 inches long, and from 2:05 to 2.45 
broad, but of twenty eggs measured the average was 2.91 by 2.31." 
The adult male has the upper part of the head variegated with brown 
spots; nape, back, and upper tail coverts ashy brown, a little lighter 
upon the edge of the feathers; inferior parts, under tail coverts, and 
legs white, with spots of a light reddish brown, more numerous and 
nearer together on the neck and chest, less frequent on the belly and 
sides; cheeks garnished with black hairs; wing coverts similar to the 
back, with edges of a lighter tint; quill feathers blackish brown; tail 
white below, above brown, and barred widely with a blackish tint, 
terminating in a white or whitish edge. Beak ashy black; cere 
"whitish, with a tinge of bluish grey in places," (Hume.) Feet 
