PSEUBOGYPS. 205 



The egg's normal type is a very long oval. More or less elon- 

 gated varieties are not uncommon; and in an enormous series that 

 1 took during the last fortnight in December 1877 at Ajmere, when, 

 by the way, many were very hard-set and most ot thejn more or 

 less incubated, I found that one in five were more or less marked with 

 pale reddish-brown blotches, spots, and mottlings at one or other 

 eud; and about one in twelve were most handsomely blotched and 

 spotted, sometimes over the entire egg, sometimes exclusively at 

 one end, where even when they extend over the whole egg they 

 are always densest, with rich burnt sienna to blood-red. Ju these 

 richly-coloured eggs there are usually also some pale purple secon- 

 dary marlcings. Taking a large body, the eggs of this species 

 are of a somewhat finer texture, more elongated, and more riclily 

 coloured than those of Gyps indicus. They vary in length from 

 3'48 to 3'9 inches, and in breadth from 2-62 to 2-85 inches. The 

 average dimensions of twenty-one eggs were 3'61 by 2-72 inches. 



Pseudogyps bengalensis (Gmel). The Indian White-bached 

 Vulture. 



Gyps bengalensis {Om.), Jerd. B. Ind. i, p. 10; Hume, Rough Draft 

 N. ^ E. no. 5. 



The Indian White-backed Vulture breeds from the latter eud of 

 October to the early part of March, but the majority, I think, lay 

 during the month of January. The nest, as far as my personal 

 experience goes (and 1 have seen many hundreds), is always placed 

 upon trees, even where convenient cliffs and precipices are close at 

 hand. Banyan and peepul are their favourite trees, I think ; but 

 I have found them breeding on the neem, tamarind, arjun (Termi- 

 nalia arjuna), and others ; in every case, however, on large trees. 

 As a rule, they prefer to nest near each other, in the outskirts of 

 some populous town, like Binderabund for instance, where ancient 

 groves with suitable trees abound. I have seen as many as fifteen 

 nests on one single peepul-tree, and as many as a hundred on 

 a group of trees lying within a circle of 200 or 300 yards in 

 diameter. It is not, however, uncommon to find a solitary nest, 

 high up on some huge peepiil-tree standing isolated in the midst 

 of cultivated land or scanty jungle ; but I have an idea that 

 these are always the nests of young birds, and that while the 

 clustered nests are tenanted by the same species year after year 

 (in one case that I know of, for certainly the last fifty years), these 

 solitary nests are rarely, if ever, re-occupied by this Vulture, who, 

 after the first year, abandons them to other tenants. On two 

 occasions I have found nests of this bird that I had robbed one 

 year, occupied the next by the Dusky Horned Owl {Bubo coroman- 

 dus); and once I found a lordly King- Vulture in possession of its 

 plebeian brother's residence. 



The nest is a large irregular platform of sticks, sometimes quite 

 at the top of the tree, often wedged in a fork, averaging probably 

 nearly 3 feet in diameter and 6 inches in thickness, but often far 



