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bees' nests of their honey, for which his home was, two thousand years ago, and still is celebrated. 

 He took off his sandals, and in about three quarters of an hour brought me two splendidly 

 coloured and perfectly fresh Egyptian Vultures' eggs, whilst I watched him almost with hair 

 standing on end. When he held out the eggs for me to see, he was so far above me that I was 

 unable to see them without my pocket telescope. The nest of the Eagle was inaccessible from 

 below; but Costa climbed down to it a few days afterwards with the assistance of a rope, and brought 

 me up the egg, which proved to be slightly incubated. In 1872 I saw a nest of this bird in an 

 exactly similar locality, about a fortnight later in the year, at Burnabat, near Smyrna ; but I had 

 some difficulty in blowing the egg, it was so far incubated. This Eagle no doubt occasionally 

 feeds upon small birds ; but in Greece and Asia Minor its food is principally lizards and snakes. 

 In the valley of the Nymph, between Smyrna and Sardis, I started one of these birds almost at 

 my feet, holding in its claws a snake at least a yard long. It flew upwards in a spiral curve, 

 rising rapidly until I lost sight of both Eagle and snake in the blue sky." 



Although the Short-toed Eagle is, as a rule, a tree breeder, instances are on record of its 

 having placed its nest on the ground; and Mr. A. von Homeyer (J. f. O. 1863, p. 265) refers to 

 one where an officer found a nest placed on the ground on an isolated rock-pinnacle, and shaded 

 by a small olive-tree, in Algeria, near Mount Matifou, and containing a single large white egg. 



Mr. Andrew Anderson sends me the following note on the nidification of this Eagle : — " On 

 the 10th of March last year (1873) I was one of a party engaged in doing a little miscellaneous 

 shooting in a belt of Dhak Jungle, when my friend Mr. Bryson drew my attention to an Eagle 

 that had just flown off her nest. The tree selected, if such it can be called, though the tallest in 

 the jungle we were shooting in, was only an overgrown thin sapling, and scarcely strong enough 

 to bear the weight of my climber. 



" The nest contained one egg ; and although there was no doubt as to the ownership of it, 

 I was anxious to secure any of the parent birds. We accordingly withdrew the beaters for half 

 an hour to allow her to return, which she did, but again sailed off the nest before we got 

 within a hundred yards. A second and a third attempt proved equally unsuccessful, notwith- 

 standing we all (three of us) approached the tree under cover of the brushwood from different 

 directions. Our movements, moreover, were not heard, as, owing to a fall of rain that very 

 morning, we could walk about the jungle without making the slightest noise. On my eventually 

 sending up a man to bring down the egg, the Eagle hovered overhead sufficiently close to decide 

 identification, though keeping well out of shooting-range. The nest was small, and in shape, size, 

 and position very similar to that of the Wokab {Aquila vindhiana, Franklin) ; but I have never 

 before experienced such wariness on the part of any bird while incubating. Only the other day 

 a pair of Wokabs attacked my climber in the most desperate manner while he was examining 

 their nest, which contained only a pair of tolerably well incubated eggs ; and as to Bonelli's 

 Eagle, Lithofalco chiquera, Micronisus badius, &c, &c, they rarely move till the hand is on 

 the nest. 



" The whole jungle was in full blossom ; and the nest itself was actually surrounded with 

 clusters of red and black flowers. The egg has an insignificant, mean appearance, quite charac- 

 teristic of the bird itself: it measures 2*7 by 2T, and has, of course, no indication of any colouring- 



2f 



