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"In 1870 they used the upper nest, and two eggs were laid; the birds were sitting on the 

 20th of February ; only one was hatched. 



"In 1871 the nest of 1869 was repaired, the birds beginning to renew it about Christmas 

 1870 ; two eggs were laid by the 6th of February, both of which proved fertile. 



"In 1872 the upper nest, that of 1870, was the favoured one: the repairs began on the 

 20th of December, 1871 ; the first of the two eggs laid was deposited on the 5th of February. 

 On the 16th of March, both were hatched, making forty days occupied in incubation. Both 

 birds sometimes sit at the same time ; but usually they relieve one another. They continually 

 turn the eggs over with their bills ; and sometimes, when taken, the eggs bear marks of this in 

 the shape of scratches. The upper part of these nests was always entirely rebuilt with fresh 

 green olive-boughs, lined with smaller twigs of the same. Some of the boughs accidentally 

 dropped I picked up at the foot of the Rock, gnawed through as if by rats. It must have cost 

 the Eagles much time and trouble to procure them, as olive is very hard and tough wood. 



"In 1873 I was not at Gibraltar; but on my return in 1874, on the 24th of February, I 

 found that they had built in a fresh situation near the other sites, and that two unspotted bluish 

 white eggs, rather smaller than the usual type, had been taken the day previously by the aid of 

 the same men whom I had employed in 1870. This nest was hid from view of the signal-station 

 by a projection of the rock, and was easily obtained, the cliff there being less than half the 

 height of that where the nest of 1870 is placed. In company with the officers who obtained 

 these eggs, we took another nest of Bonelli's Eagle at some distance from Gibraltar. It was on 

 some rocks where the previous spring they had had the good fortune to take two eggs. We 

 found the nest built in a different situation, easily obtained by the aid of a rope, and very neatly 

 built and lined with twigs and leaves of the cork-tree ; it contained two splendid eggs, beautifully 

 marked with red streaks and spots, similar to those taken in 1873, and doubtless laid by the 

 same bird. I was informed that the latter nest was lined with the leaves of the asphodel, and 

 that the spoilers literally walked into the nest. I saw the situation myself; and it was certainly 

 the easiest to reach that I know of, as they usually build on the face of steep cliffs. 



"A nest which I found in 1874 contained only one egg, which was addled; but curiously 

 enough the bird was sitting hard on this rotten egg, and I succeeded in shooting the female. 

 This nest was in a hole, and only about 50 feet from the base of the steep cliff in which it was 

 placed, and was lined with twigs and leaves of butcher's broom." 



Some excellent notes have been published by Mr. A. O. Hume (Rough Notes, pp. 191-194) 

 on the nidification of this Eagle in India, which I transcribe as follows : — " About a mile above 

 the confluence of the clear blue waters of the Chumbal and the muddy stream of the Jumna, 

 in a range of bold perpendicular clay cliffs, that rise more than a hundred feet above the cold- 

 weather level of the former river, I took my first nest of Bonelli's Eagle. In the rainy season, 

 water trickling from above, had, in a way trickling water often does, worn a deep recess into the 

 face of the cliff, about one third of the way down. Above and below, it had merely broadly 

 grooved the surface ; but here (finding a softer bed, I suppose) it had worn-in a recess some five 

 feet high and three feet deep and broad. The bottom of this recess sloped downwards ; but the 

 birds, by using branches with large twiggy extremities, had built up a large level platform that 

 projected some two feet beyond the face of the cliff. It was a great mass of sticks, fully half a 



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