350 JOURNAL, BOMB A Y NA TURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol.XVIIl. 



only leaves us during the breeding season because it oannot find 

 comfortable family quarters in our island." 



B. Aitken remarks : "I have no notes of the nidification of this 

 species, but I have been much struck with the way they totally dis- 

 appear during the hot season in common with the king-crow and 

 some shrikes. In Poona, weeks after the last of them has been seen 

 in Cantonments, an occasional pair may be met with in some sheltered 

 spot a few miles out. But with regard to the Island of Bombay I 

 have no doubt that the common bee-eater migrates as verily as the 

 common swallow or the grey wagtail. I have been 12 years in Bom- 

 bay, and never saw so much as a feather of them from April to Sep- 

 tember. In my notes, I have the 6th October 1865 and the 9th Octo- 

 ber 1866 recorded as the days of the first appearance of the bee- 

 eater in Bombay in those years. The date of their disappearance in 

 1867 was the 14th March. " According to Col. Cunningham these 

 birds are only temporary residents in Calcutta. They winter there 

 leaving with wonderful regularity at the beginning of the hot weather. 

 Regarding their arrival in Calcutta he writes : " From a record of 

 the dates of its occurrence during a period of 8 years it appears that 

 it took place five times in the second week, once on the fourth day, 

 once on the 7th day, and once in the 3rd week in October, and from 

 a much more extended series of observations the loth of the month 

 comes out as the normal date. These dates are to be taken as referring 

 to the arrival of the birds to propose to spend a winter in the place ; 

 for in almost every year small parties may be seen and heard passing- 

 high over head for some days before any come to settle down." 



A correspondent, whose letter 1 have unfortunately mislaid, informs 

 me that it is his belief that this species completely leaves Hyderabad t 

 Deccan, in the hot weather. 



As regards Lahore there is not the least doubt that the bee-eater is 

 merely a summer visitant, — it comes in enormous numbers to breed. 

 In a previous number of this Journal I wrote : " I arrived in Lahore 

 on October 19th, 1905, and from that day until March 8th, 1906, I 

 did not set eyes on a bee-eater. " They begin to leave Lahore in the 

 first week of October and there is scarcely one to be seen by the 

 12th of that month. 



Writing from Bannu, Magrath says : " Mevops viridis is a com- 

 mon summer visitor breeding in all the banks about. 



