SPILOEJflS. 155 



roots. The nest is usually placed on lofty trees, in well-wooded, 

 shady and watered ravines, or in the low Himalayan rice-lands 

 and warmer valleys. I have found the nests of these birds in the 

 lower valleys. They contained one young usually. I have never 

 got the eggs." 



Mr. J. 0. Parker sends me the following note from Bengal ; — 

 " One egg from a nest in a peepul-tree, Magra lake, Nuddea. As 

 regards colour this egg so nearly resembles the description given 

 by yourself of a common variety of this species in ' Kests and Eggs,' 

 that I need say no more, and as to the position of the nest in the tree, 

 it exactly corresponded with that given by Major Cock in the same 

 work. The nest as viewed from below seemed a small poor affair, 

 composed of large sticks, and was found to be lined with the fresh 

 leaves of the tree ; and when iirsfc discovered on 23rd February, I 

 took it to be unfinished, but there did not appear to be anything 

 added to the structure when I secured the egg, which was quite 

 fresh, on the 18th March, shooting the female from the nest." 



The first two eggs that I obtained of this species, both of which 

 were taken by Major Cock near Dhurumsala, differed much in 

 appearance. The one, though considerably larger than average 

 specimens, and with a closer and less chalky texture, greatly re- 

 minded one of a common type of the eggs of Neophron gingiinanus ; 

 while the other, though of course smaller, in shape and richness 

 of colouring resembled some of the more brilliantly coloured eggs 

 of the Golden Eagle. The first egg had a dingy reddish-white 

 ground, with at the large end a ragged cap of dingy brick-red, 

 mottled with deep blackish blood-red. Beyond the cap, which 

 was of the size of a rupee, streaks, specks and splashes, all having 

 a longitudinal direction and looking much Uke a dense reddish- 

 brown shower falling from the cap, thickly covered the whole of 

 the rest of the egg, growing less and less dense towards the small 

 end. 



The other had a pure white ground, and was thickly blotched, 

 mottled, and clouded with the richest blood- and brick-red. The 

 big end, for the space of about a rupee, exhibits no markings but a 

 few specks and spots, and though the rest of the egg is everywhere 

 pretty thickly covered, the markings are most dense at the small 

 end. In shape, the one egg is a nearly perfect ellipse slightly 

 pointed towards the smaU end, but the other egg is a very broad 

 oval, very obtuse at the large end and scarcely less so at the smaller 

 extremity. 



Subsequently I have seen many of these eggs, and I may say 

 generally that they are broad ovals, in some specimens somewhat 

 pyriform, and in many a good deal pointed towards the small end. 

 The texture of the shell is much that of the egg of the common Kite, 

 rather rough and glossless. The ground is bluish or greenish, 

 more rarely reddish white — in some thinly and scantily speckled 

 and spotted with reddish brown and red ; in some sparingly 

 clouded and dingily blotched with pale purple or purplish brown ; 

 in others with the markings denser and richer, forming at times a 



