CIECAfiTTJS. 151 



The nest is a large circular stick structure, some 2 or 3 feet in 

 diameter and from 6 inches to a foot in depth, externally very 

 loose and straggling, but composed of rather slighter materials than 

 A. vindhiana generally uses, and with a rather deeper internal 

 depression. 



Some nests are entirely devoid of lining, rather finer twigs com- 

 pose the floor of the internal depression and on these the egg 

 reposes. Some nests again have the egg bedded in straw and grass, 

 positively as if packed to travel ; under some I have found a few 

 green leaves spread, after the fashion of BonelU's Eagle, and under 

 many a little grass. There appears to be no rule in this matter, 

 season does not afiect the question, nor, as far as I can see, locality ; 

 in the early part of January and late in March, in the Agra and 

 Sirsa Districts, and in the far west beyond Jodhpoor, I have observed 

 the same diversities in the internal arrangements of the nests. 



I have taken a great number of the nests of this species and 

 many of my friends have found them also ; but in no instance out 

 of between forty and fifty recorded cases did any of us meet with 

 more than a single egg in the same nest. 



When deprived of their egg, the Short>-toed Eagles will hang for 

 weeks about their desolated homestead, but apparently they never 

 lay a second time, as many other species do. 



Mr. W. Blewitt informs me that he took nine nests of this bird 

 in the neighbourhood of Hansie between the 1 8th January and the 

 26th February, and four between the 6th and 26th of March. 

 Some of the eggs were fresh ; some more or less incubated ; but 

 no nest contained more than a single egg. Eleven of the nests 

 were on keekur (Acacia arabica) trees, one on a jhand (Prosopis 

 spicigerci) tree, and one on a seeshum {Dalbergia sissoo). The nests 

 were placed at heights varying from 14 to 22 feet from the 

 ground. 



They were composed of twigs of the keekur, kheyr {Acacia 

 catechu), and native plum {Zizyphus jujuba). They varied in dia- 

 meter from 14 to 24 inches, excluding straggling ends, and in 

 thickness from 4 to 8 inches. Some were slightly and loosely put 

 together ; others were very densely and closely constructed. Most 

 of them appeared to have no lining ; but three were thinly lined 

 with straw, two with leaves, and one with fine grass. 



Colonel Gr. F. L. Marshall writes to me : — " Of this bird I have 

 found but one nest. I found it on the 13th of March with one egg, 

 and left it till the 6th April, m hopes that more would be laid, 

 and when I took it at last, it was rather hard-set, so that probably 

 the bird lays but one egg. The nest was in a seeshum-tree, so 

 high up among the smaller branches that I reached it with difficulty ; 

 it was made of twigs and so loose in structure that I could see 

 that there was only one egg from below, before I had reached the 

 nest. The egg was well-shaped and pure dull white." 



Mr. E. Thompson, writing from G-urhwal, says that the situation 

 of the nest is " usually on the highest branches of a tall tree, in a 

 moderately wooded country, and mostly in one standing by itself." 



