160 FALCONID^. 



" Elsewhere I have thus described the first set above alluded 

 to : — ' This Buzzard, as is well known, lays absolutely colourless 

 eggs of the G-oshawk type ; the occurrence, therefore, of a clutch 

 of coloured eggs will doubtless prove interesting to oologists. One 

 of these eggs is very mell marked with reddish-brown blotches 

 at the obtuse end, covering nearly half the surface of the egg ; the 

 second is faintly marked with light greyish-brown spots at the 

 small end, somewhat in the form of a zone ; and the third has still 

 fainter indications of colouring-matter at the same end.' 



" During the past spring I have been so fortunate as to obtain 

 two pairs of even better coloured eggs than those above alluded to. 

 These I will endeavour to describe as follows : — 



" (i.) Nest of two eggs, Futtehgurh, 5th April, 1876. These 

 are somewhat undersized ; in shape of a broad o\al, and freely 

 marked vdth reddish-brown specks at the obtuse end. In one 

 specimen the markings extend, more or less, all over the surface of 

 the egg. 



" (ii.) Nest of two eggs, Futtehgurh, 27th April, 1875. A full- 

 sized pair ; one is a broad oval, the other somewhat pyriform. The 

 former has a few russel>brown blotches at one end only, one of the 

 marks being about the size of a large pea. The colouring-matter 

 in the companion egg is confined to the compressed end, covering 

 about a fifth of the surface, and consists of delicate russet-brown 

 veined or map-Kke markings which are so characteristic of the 

 Bunting group. 



" In the coloured eggs of this species we have a very good illus- 

 tration of the importance of oology as an element in the classification 

 of birds, clearly showing that PoUornis forms as it were the con- 

 necting-link between the genera Buteo and Circus. 



" If I were to arrange the above series of coloured eggs in my 

 collection, according to their appearance, 1 should assign to them a 

 place between the eggs of Haliastur indus and Elanus melanopterus." 



Mr. Benjamin Aitken remarks : — " In either April or May 

 1 870 I obtained three eggs from a nest in a tree in the middle of 

 a mango-tope at Akola, Berar. The parent birds at once took 

 possession of an old nest, either a Crow's or a Hawk's, perhaps 

 their own of a former year, and laid three more eggs, one of which 

 was taken. The former two were hatched in due time, and the 

 young birds left the nest in the end of June. 



" The young of this bird, and also of the Shikra, keep up an 

 incessant screaming for days before and after they leave the nest ; 

 so that you cannot pass within two hundred yards of a brood of 

 nearly fledged or newly fledged birds without being made painfully 

 aware of their existence and good spirits." 



The affinities of this bird, to judge by its eggs only, are rather 

 with the Goshawk and the Harriers, than with the Buzzards or the 

 Kites. All the eggs that I have seen are pure greyish or pale 

 bluish white, absolutely without speck or spot ; but occasionally 

 eggs may be found marked as described by Mr. Anderson. In 

 shape they are a broad oval ; but some are slightly pyriform. 



