280 "Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. [No. 3. 



good coup d'ceil of the surrounding country, I determined to climb to the 

 top of the highest peak of the Kharong hills, a detached mass of lime- 

 stone rock which rises almost perpendicularly out of an extensive level 

 plain, to the height of 600 feet. The ascent was extremely difficult and 

 dangerous, and had never before (as the people assured me) been attempted 

 by an European. On gaining the summit I found that I was immediately 

 over the top of a large tree — which sprung from a crevice in the rock be- 

 low : and on its highest branches was an * Adjutant's' nest, composed of 

 dry sticks very rudely interlaced [or merely heaped together ?] making a 

 flat platform as it were, with little or no perceptible cavity towards the 

 centre. In this were two young * Adjutants,' about the size of small Geese, 

 covered with a white down, and with pouches and beaks ridiculously 

 disproportioned to their size, being extraordinarily large. Both of the 

 young were taken by one of my Burmese servants. In another similar 

 nest, in an adjoining tree, were one young one, and one addled egg, of a 

 spotless dirty white and somewhat larger than a Turkey's egg." 



Mr. E. W. G. Frith informs us that he found both of the species of 

 'Adjutant' breeding in the S. E. part of the Sundarbans. Their nests 

 were placed on the tops of the loftiest trees, and were extremely difficult 

 and hazardous to approach, from the density of the undergrowth and 

 the great number of Tigers which infest the vicinity. In fact the nests 

 were only to be approached by means of the tracks made by Ehinoceroses, 

 Buffaloes, &c, through the jungle. The large or pouched species breeds 

 about a month earlier in the season than the other, immediately (it would 

 seem) after its arrival from the places which it frequents during the rainy 

 season. They are then in the finest state of plumage; ash-grey, with 

 the pale wing-band complete ; and, for the most part, they have but just 

 perfected their plumage when they leave Calcutta at the end of the rains. 

 In the same neighbourhood, Mr. Frith was credibly assured that the huge 

 Ardea goliath, Riippell (A. nobilis, nobis, &c.),* also bred ; and he 

 expects to be able to procure the eggs of all three species during the 

 next breeding season. 



A further notice of the ' Adjutant' may be here cited. In Lower Bengal, 

 we see the adult birds only during the rains ; though the young remain 

 throughout the year, congregating about abattoirs and such places. At 

 Masuri, Capt. Hutton remarks — "The 'Adjutant' is a sure forerunner 

 of the rains with us, appearing always about a fortnight before they 



* These are recognised as distinct by the Prince of Canino. Comptes Rendus, 

 XL (1855), p. 722. 



