156 PALCONID^. 



confluent brick-dust red cap at the larger end, mottled with deep 

 red, and the whole of the rest of the surface thickly streaked and 

 speckled and spotted with brownish red and purple. 



In length they vary from 2-62 to 2-88 inches, and in breadth 

 from 2-12 to 2-25 ; but the average of a dozen eggs is 2-78 by 2-2 

 inches nearly. 



Spilornis melanotis (Jerd.). Jerdon's Serpent-Eagle. 



Spilornis minor, Hume ; Hume, Rough Draft N. %■ E. no. 39 bis. 

 Spilornis melanotis {Jerd.), Hume, Cat. no. 39 bis. 



Jerdon's Serpent-Eagle breeds in the neighbourhood of Eaipoor, 

 where in May Mr. !P. E. Blewitt obtained a nest containing two 

 eggs. He says : — " When the nest was robbed, the female was 

 sitting on the eggs, and the male was perched on a branch near to 

 the nest. The nest was near to the top of a large peepul-tree, 

 between the forks of a branch, overhanging a small stream. The 

 nest was composed of prickly and other twigs, some 20 inches in 

 diameter and 4 or 5 inches in thickness. It was densely lined with 

 green leaves, peepul and mango. These were formed into a pad, 

 some 12 inches in diameter and fully 2 inches thick." 



These two eggs are of somewhat the same type, but decidedly 

 smaller and feebler coloured than those of S. cheela. They are very 

 regular ovals ; the ground a dull white and totally glossless, and 

 the texture of the shell, as in the last species, rather coarse and 

 chalky. The one is rather thinly speckled and spotted all over with 

 very dull dingy brownish red ; the other has about half a dozen 

 tiny spots of this colour and a number of very pale washed-out 

 brownish-purple clouds, almost confined to the two ends, large at 

 the large and small at the small end. They both measure 2-68 

 inches in length and 2-05 and 2 inches in breadth respectively. 



Mr. Gr. Vidal writes from the Southern Konkan : — " The only 

 eggs of this species I have w&ce taken from two nests on the 18th 

 and 20th March. They measure, respectively, 2-75 by 2-25 and 

 2-65 by 2-22, and are broad white ovals, slightly pointed at the 

 small end, streaked all over with reddish brown, and with a con- 

 fluent cap of the same shade at the large end." 



Spilornis rutherfordi, Swinh. Rutherford's Serpent-Eagle. 

 SpUoruis rutherfordi, Sioinh., Hume, Cat. no. 39 ter. 



Of the nidification of this Serpent-Eagle in Tenasserim, Major 

 Bingham writes : — " Wherever there is a quia (i. e. marsh) or large 

 patches of wet paddy cultivation, a pair of these Harrier-Eagles 

 are almost certain to be found. 



" It is very common in the Thoungyeen valley, where, on the 

 14th March this year, I revisited a nest I had had marked down 

 for me in February, and took from it a solitary egg, measuring 

 2-57 by 2'08 — in fact rather a broad oval of a dull white ground, 



