136 EAICONID^. 



most common are a few large blotches and splashes of yellowish 

 brown, accompanied by pretty numerous specks or spots of the 

 same colour, distributed pretty evenly over the whole egg. In some, 

 the blotches are more extensive and numerous, and exhibit a ten- 

 dency to cluster towards one end more than the other, and the 

 colour becomes a reddish brown, or in some a purplish brown, while 

 in others all three colours are mingled. In no egg that I possess 

 is more than one-third of the surface covered with markings, and, 

 as a rule, even the richest coloured eggs (and these are comparatively 

 rare) have not above a seventh or eighth of the surface of the egg 

 covered with markings. 



Elsewhere I have remarked : — " The eggs vary extraordinarily 

 both in size and shape from a very long oval, much pointed at one 

 end, to almost a sphere ; but the ordinary type is a rather broad 

 oval, slightly narrower at one end. In colour, they are most com- 

 monly white, with a very faint tinge of bluish green ; but many of 

 them are more or less streaked, spotted, or blotched with different 

 shades of brown or reddish brown, and occasionally purple of varying 

 intensity, and here and there one may be found richly marked with 

 sharply defined spots and blotchesof bright, though slightly brownish, 

 red. Many of the eggs, when taken from the nest, have a faint 

 gloss on them ; but they lose this by washing, and the eggs become 

 so soiled during incubation that it usually is necessary to wash them. 

 The texture is generally close and compact ; the egg-lining is a 

 pure sea-green." 



In size the eggs vary from 2'35 to 3'25 inches in length, and from 

 1-8 to 2-25 inches in breadth ; but the average of one hundred and 

 fifty-nine eggs measured was 2'63 by 2'11 inches. 



Aqnila hastata (Less.). The Long-legged Eagle. 



AquUa hastata (Less?), Jerd. B. Ind. i, p. 62 ; Bume, Rough Draft 

 N.l^E. no. .30. 



The Long-legged Eagle appears to breed in many parts of con- 

 tinental India. I know of its breeding in the Eaipoor and Sumbul- 

 poor districts, in the neighbourhood of Calcutta, in Dacca, and 

 again in the extreme north-west, in the Agrore YaUey. Here it 

 was, not far from Abbotabad, that Captain IJuwin, of the 25th 

 Goorkhas, found two nests on the 29th of April and the 6th of May, 

 the one containing two, the other a single egg ; all of which, to- 

 gether with three of the parent birds, he kindly sent me. Of one of 

 the nests he writes as follows : — 



" The nest was found on the 6th of May, placed on a cheer or 

 fir tree, in a fork about 30 feet from the ground, and the old bird 

 was shot as she sat alongside the nest. The tree was situated on 

 a sloping hill-side, rather detached from the forests. The nest was 

 constructed of sticks, large towards the exterior and smaller to- 

 wards the interior of the nest. It was about 18 or 20 inches thick, 

 and 2| feet broad, with a depression of about 3 inches deep in the 



