M48 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XV III. 



The question is, where do these summer visitors come from ? I am 

 inclined to think that more careful observation will show that there is 

 a general northward migration of this species each spring, and the 

 reverse in autumn, so that in the hot weather the most southern parts 

 of India are almost denuded of honey-suckers of this species ; 

 A. lotenia is, of course, abundant all the year round in S. India. 



(1026). The Common Indian Bee-eater. — (Merops viridis.) 



I dwelt at some length with the migration of this species in Vol. 

 XVIJ. (p. 520) of this Journal, but as I have gained additional 

 knowledge since then, I will, for the sake of completeness, reproduce 

 much of what I have said there. Blanford says (p. Ill, Birds., Ind., 

 Vol. Ill) : "Common and resident throughout India, Ceylon and 

 Burmah. Wanting in the Himalayas, where this species rarely 

 occurs, even in the lower ranges, though there are specimens from 

 Kashmir and Murree in the Hume collection. Absent also as a rule 

 on the higher hills of the Peninsula, and in some of the denser and 

 damper forests. In Ceylon M. viridis is found only in the drier parts 

 of the low country. In Tenasserim it has not been observed south of 

 Mergui, and it does not occur in the Malay Peninsula, nor in the 

 Andamans or Nicobars, though it is found in Siam and Cochin China. 

 West of India it extends through Baluchistan and Southern Persia to 

 North-Eastern Africa a resident in general, but locally migratory in 

 some places : thus it is said to leave the island of Bombay from April 

 to September." 



The following note recorded by Ward on page 725 of Vol. XVII 

 of this Journal probably disposes of the statement that this species 

 occurs in Kashmir: — 



"The name Kashmir is often applied to the whole of the Maharaja's 

 dominions, hence the specimens in the Hume collection may have 

 come from the Jammu province. I have not seen this Bee-eater in 

 Kashmir. " 



As regards the statement that this bird is as a rule absent from the 

 higher hills of the Peninsula, Davison remarks : — " The bird is very 

 common at Kulhutty on the Nilgins, about 5,500 feet above the sea; 

 in fact, I have taken the eggs from the roadside just above the dak 

 bungalow at the above mentioned place, and I have shot the bird in 

 the Neddivuttum Cinchona Plantations, about 6,000 feet above the 



sea." 



