122 FALCOSriD^. 



principally of doob. The egg was devoid of markings but was 

 soiled, evidently by the bird's droppings, in a few places. Another 

 nest, which I found on the 15th of April, 1878, contained three 

 partly-fledged young, and was situate on a mango-tree, near the 

 top of the tree and about 25 feet from the ground; neither of 

 these nests were in the vicinity of water." 



Major Bingham writes from Tenasserim : — "Passing through a 

 toungijah or cultivation, belonging to a Karen of a village near my 

 camp, I noticed a hawk fly off a nest placed on a large branch of a 

 pymma tree {Lagerstrosmia flos regirue) which grew horizontally 

 out at a height of fully 40 feet above the ground ; it (the nest) 

 was rather difficult of detection, as it was placed above a large 

 bunch of orchids which prevented it from being seen from below, 

 and it was only by retiring to some rising ground two or three 

 hundred yards off and using my binoculars that I made it out. 

 After waiting for some time, and finding the bird did not return, 

 1 retraced my steps to my camp. This was on the 11th April. 



" Next day I returned and secured the three eggs, very hard- 

 set they were, which the nest contained, and shot the female as 

 she sat on a neighbouring tree after flying off the nest. This 

 latter was very like that of A. badias, a poor affair of sticks very 

 loosely put together. The eggs, too, very much resemble those of 

 its near relalive." 



To judge from these specimens, the eggs are rather longer 

 than those of A. hadiux. They measure 1'69 by 1'24, VI by 1*27, 

 and 1"63 by 1-13; the average of a large series of A. hadius ia 

 1 'oo by 1'22, and the longest I have measured was only 1'65 in 

 Length. 



These eggs are the usual pale greyish-bluish white, devoid of 

 real markings, though stained and dirted here and there. The 

 shells very fine and compact, but with very httle appreciable 

 gloss. 



Accipiter nisns (Linn.). The Sparrow-Hawk. 



Accipiter nisus {Linn.}, Jerd. B. Ind. i, p. 51 ; Hume, Rough 

 Draft N. Sf E. no. 24. 



Sparrow-Hawks, belonging probably to both the present and the 

 next species, breed not uncommonly in wooded valleys in the 

 interior of the Himalayas. I have repeatedly seen their nests, 

 and once (in May) took one about two marches on the Mussoorie 

 side of Grungootrie, containing four bluish-white red-blotched eggs, 

 exactly like, it seemed to me, the Sparrow-Hawks' eggs I had so 

 often taken as a boy at home. 



I cannot now be sure whether these eggs belonged to the true 

 A. nisus or to A. mdanoschistus. 



Captain Thompson of Simla assured me that one or two pairs of 

 the true Sparrow-Hawk breed yearly in Annandale, just below 

 Simla, laying in May and June. 



