GYPS. 203 



The eggs are broad ovals, usually very symmetrical, sometimes 

 slightly pointed towards one end. The shell is very hard and 

 strong, but, compared with that of the eggs of Oyps pallescens, 

 rather coarse-grained. They run rather smaller also, I think, than 

 these. The colour is nearly pure white, with just a faint greyish 

 tinge, and very fevp eggs seem to show markings. 



Eight eggs vary from 3-39 to 3'62 in length, and from 2'68 to 

 2-78 in breadth. 



Gyps pallescens, Hume. The Pallid Vulture. 



Gyps indious (Scop.), apud Hume., Rough Draft N. Sf E. no. 4. 

 Gyps pallescens, Hume ; Hume, Cat. no. 4 bis. 



Our present species breeds in the latter part of December, 

 .January, and possibly the early part of ^February ; by the end of 

 March every egg has been hatched off. It always selects, as far as 

 my experience goes, nearly inaccessible and precipitous cliffs to 

 breed on ; but as I have only yet found it breeding in two places, 

 viz., at the Taragurh Hill near Ajmere, and the Gaimookh cliffs on 

 Mount Aboo, I cannot speak positively. J erdou, however, mentions 

 that the present species breeds on " some of the cliffs bounding 

 the valley, in which are situated the celebrated caves of Ajunta ; " 

 and Mr. E. Thompson found their nests on the cliffs of the Puch- 

 niurrees. 



The breeding-places of this species (they appear always to breed 

 in society) are often very picturesquely situated. The Taragurh 

 Hill, which overlooks and almost overhangs the city of Ajmere and 

 the beautiful Ana Sagur Lake, may be about 2900 feet above the 

 level of the sea. On precipitous faces of this hill, especially where 

 succeeding overlapping ledges make the place as nearly inaccessible 

 as may be, colonies of this Vulture breed. One of these breeding- 

 hauuts, which I minutely examined, was a cliff-face some 100 feet 

 high by 300 wide, all broken up into ii'regular ledges, of which 

 the highest overhung all the rest. In amongst the ledges were a 

 few dwarf banyan-trees, whose long bare roots and rootlets hung 

 down, here and there, in dense, grey, giant skeins ; all the ledges 

 but the uppermost, when looked at from below, seemed garnished 

 with heavy white fringes, the white droppings of the birds having 

 run down in close parallel Unes in a wonderfully symmetrical fashion, 

 over the weatlier-smoothed edges of the terraces. Seen from a 

 distance, the whole cliff-face seemed mottled with huge patches of 

 whitewash. Bleached bones and dusky quills strewed every little 

 plateau, and nestled in every cranny. It was on the 30th of March, 

 1867, that I laid siege to this natural fortress. With the assistance 

 of two sporting Mahomedan faqeers- — two of the best cragsman 

 I ever saw — I crept, having duly removed my boots, to the lowest 

 ledge, a work of extreme difficulty, owing to the excessive slipperi- 

 ness of the while-crusted rocks. To my intense disgust, a httle 

 apart from the nest, on the bare stone, sat a huge unwieldy mass 



