NOTES ON "THE BIRDS OF BOMBAY.' 5 31 



are blotched with red-brown. Mr. Barnes's words would lead one 

 to suppose that the latter type was occasionally without markings, 

 which is never the case. His description of the tailor-bird, I may 

 add, does not discriminate the sexes sufficiently. 



With regard to the nesting of the common Indian Swift (C. 

 affinis) I may add to Mr. Barnes's observations the curious fact that 

 on the 23rd February 1885 the nests of a colony of the cliff swallow 

 {H.fluvicold) under the City Bridge, Baroda, were found by me to 

 be occupied by about fifty of these swifts, who had eggs and youngs 

 in them, while the cliff swallows had been forced to build a fresh 

 cluster of nests further under the arch for their February brood. 

 The nests the swifts had taken were probably those built by the 

 cliff swallows for their previous September clutch, as last October 

 I found that the young cliff swallows had all just flown and that a 

 few young swifts were still unfledged in the nests of //. fluvicola* 



SpeakiDg of the swifts, Mr. Barnes calls G. melba (the Alpine 

 Swift), a somewhat rare cold weather visitant. I saw seven and 

 shot one near Baroda on the 21st September 1885, which is well 

 before the " cold weather." 



Since the publication of Captain Marshall's useful book, " Bird's 

 Nesting in India," in which the eggs of Caprimulgus Mahrattensis 

 are stated to be unknown, Mr. Doig found them to be common in 

 Sind, and described them in " Stray Feathers" (Vol. viii., p. 372). 

 Mr. Barnes does not describe the eggs, which, out of Sind at least, 

 would bo a valuable find for an oologist.' 



The blue-tailed bee-eater, says Mr. Barnes, " occurs sparingly 

 throughout our district." It is common along the Guzerat rivers, 

 and I have seen hundreds along the Main from TVasad to Dabka. 

 They move to the tanks and meadows, especially those near the tele- 

 graph wires, in the rains, returning to the larger rivers as the country 

 dries up. I took thirty eggs last year from deep holes in nullahs 

 along the Main — eggs like -those of M. viridis, but larger. In 

 Guzerat the common bee-eater is called tilwa : Mr. Barnes mves 

 "hurrial" as the Hind. name. I do not see what Hind, names have to 

 do with the Bombay Presidency. A guide to the birds of this side 

 of India should give the names in as many as possible of the local 

 vernaculars, and should be rich in such details. Mr. Barnes's book 

 is very deficient in this respect, and I would suggest that our Society 



* Canon Tristram Fauna and Flora of Palestine, p. 8-t, notes the same of C. affinis. 

 I may remark " that the Baroda swifts had not made any l addition Jof an aggluti- 

 nated straw and feather entrance to the original edifioe of clay," as in Palestine. 



