204 ttjltueidjE. 



of yellow 'fluffy clown, opening a vast moufh and cacltling and 

 hissing at me in the most hostile manner. The unfortunate little 

 wretch vxas too fat and heavy to stand firmly on its stumpy legs, 

 and could only stand up for a second, stagger a few inches, and 

 then plump down exhausted. It was about 10 a.m., and all the 

 old ones were away procuring food, and during the two hours we 

 remained about the rocks, only one of them at all closely approached 

 the place, although before we left the whole community — I should 

 say nearly sixty in number — had collected in the valley (in one side 

 of which the cliif was situated), and kept wheeling and circling 

 round above their homes, but at a distance of fully | mile. We 

 left the dingy little tenant of the first nest in peace, and slowly 

 and painfully made our way to one after another of the nest-filled 

 ledges. Everywhere we found the nests empty; but in the case 

 of about half the number, a more or less ad\anced young one of 

 from a week to more than a month old was squatting on the bare 

 rock a few feet from the nest. Those nests near which no young 

 was seen had obviously not been tenanted. At the time I fancied 

 that these belonged to birds that had not yet laid, but I had the 

 place closely watched for nearly a month without any one of them 

 being used, so that I presume that the birds often find their first 

 nest unsuitable in some way and construct a second, in which to 

 incubate their egg. 



The nest, placed on some ledge of the cliff's face, consists only of 

 coarse sticks and twigs. "When the eggs are first laid, there may 

 be some lining of lea\es, as in those of many other kinds of 

 Vultures and Eagles ; but when I visited the place the young were 

 all hatched and the nest so coated with their droppings that it was 

 impossible to trace any lining. The nest is nothing more than a 

 thin, flat, irregularly circular pad of sticks, from 2 to 3 feet in 

 diameter, and from 3 to 6 inches in depth. 



As a rule, they only lay a single egg. Of all the fifty odd nests 

 to which I made my way, not one contained more than a single 

 young one. 



Captain Eepton, Deputy Commissioner of Ajmere, very kindly 

 secured for me a noble series of eggs from these very nests, ten 

 months after I had visited them. 



Messrs. Davidson and Wenden write :- — " At all seasons mode- 

 rately common in the Sholapoor Districts. It breeds on some of 

 the Satara cliffs in Tadli, and also in the valley of the Sina at 

 Xaywi." 



And Mr. H. Wenden records the following note : — " On 6th 

 December I noticed this species breeding on the splendid over- 

 hanging cliffs of the northern face of the Perseek Hills, through 

 which the G-. I. P. Eailuay passes by two tunnels, some 24 miles 

 from Bombay. There were several nests ; all on (to me) inacces- 

 sible ledges. One, into which I could see and on which sat or 

 ruther lay a bird, with its wings spread out and its neck stretched 

 close to the rock, as though it were endeavouring to hide, contained 

 one egg." 



