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description, as, besides the Lammergeyer's nest, it contains by far the largest colony of Vultur 

 fulvus in these regions." 



In Europe the Bearded Vulture is an early breeder, and its eggs are usually deposited in the 

 month of February. It lays usually two eggs, depositing them in a large bulky nest built of 

 sticks, and lined with wool or some other soft material. The nest is built in the high mountains, 

 generally in some almost inaccessible position, especially if the bird has been molested; but it 

 evinces a great dislike to forsake any favourite locality. Mr. Hume gives the account of the 

 taking of an eyry in the Himalayas by Captain Cock, which we copy as follows : — " On the 

 4th of December, 1868, I found the nest of Gypaetos barbatus, in a hollow on the face of a steep 

 precipice, situated in a range of hills some six miles oif the Grand Trunk Road, two marches from 

 Rawulpindee on the Peshawur side. I was out after nests, with but little hope of finding any at 

 that time of the year, when the Shikaree I had with me told me that some years before, when out 

 with some sportsmen after Ounal, they had frightened a large bird off its nest ; and he volunteered 

 to show me where it was. We accordingly went to a steep gorge in the hill, very narrow, but 

 with a tremendous precipice on each side. From the top, where I was standing, to the opposite 

 side might have been some 90 yards across, and the precipice was some 180 feet in depth. About 

 halfway down, in what seemed a sheer wall of rock, was a hollow some 6 feet in height and 5 feet 

 in depth and breadth. In this was placed the Lammergeyer's nest. 



" The old bird was on her nest, and I looked at her for some time with the glass ; she took 

 alarm at once, and advancing to the edge of her nest stood up and looked at me with her neck 

 stretched out and head turned sideways, bringing one eye to bear on me. She was a most noble- 

 looking bird, her large yellow eye setting off her appearance. Flinging some stones down into 

 the gorge to frighten her, she soon glided off her nest, and I could see two eggs. I now sat down 

 to reconnoitre and plan some way of getting her eggs. By means of a shelf of rock I could crawl 

 to within 15 feet of her nest; but there it ended. I had three long ropes with me, but they 

 would only just reach down to the nest from the top ; one of my fellows, a young light lad of 

 fifteen, offered to go over the precipice with the rope round him. We made the rope fast to a 

 tree above, and the boy's brother, a sturdy Pathan, payed out the rope, and the young fellow 

 went over most gallantly. Both Lammergeyers now came flying round, but did not evince any 

 great courage ; for after I had hurled some bits of rock at them, the male went off altogether, and 

 the female only hovered about at some distance. 



" The young Pathan now got into the nest and walked about in it. It was a large structure 

 of sticks, and completely filled up the hollow or cave in which it was placed. It was lined with 

 locks of the hair of hill-goats, on which the eggs were placed ; there was also one piece of cloth 

 in the nest, some blue cotton stuff, by which I was reminded of this bird's relationship to 

 Neophron. The eggs were set, I should think, from fifteen to eighteen days." 



In Dresser's collection are eggs from the Pyrenees, which are rather short and stout in shape, 

 and measure 3^ by 2 ^ inches ; in colour they are dull yellowish orange, inclining in parts to 

 rusty yellow. Our friend Dr. E. Rey writes to us as follows: — "Some twelve to fifteen eggs of 

 this species have passed through my hands. At present I possess only two eggs from the 

 Pyrenees: one measures 78*5 by 6T0 millimetres, the other 79'0 by 60-0 millimetres. This 

 latter egg is peculiarly marked : from its smaller end to where it expands into greatest breadth 



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