352 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XVIII. 



noticed them up to October and they do not remain here after then. 

 I found them breeding in numbers not far from Hatauri during April 

 and May in the banks of the Keray river." 



Writing of Calcutta, Col. Cunningham says : — " During the rainy 

 season the common bee-eaters are replaced by their larger relatives, 

 Merops philippinus. They make their appearance in great flocks. " 

 Tn my list of the birds of Madras I recorded of this species : " Not 

 very abundant within Municipal limits, but one sees many of them 

 when out snipe shooting. " Now snipes are found only in the cold 

 weather, so that it is quite possible that these bee-eaters migrated 

 from Madras at the beginning of the hot weather without my noticing 

 the fact. This is a question which some naturalist now in Madras 

 might easily settle. We must remember that this species is, as a rule, 

 nowhere very abundant, hence is not so likely to be missed, if it 

 migrates, as a more abundant species would be. Osmaston says that 

 the bird is a winter migrant to Narcondam. He states that it is not 

 common in the Audamans. " I saw " he writes, " a few individuals 

 near Port Blair in March and also in Narcondam in October. They 

 were probably only in migration at the time and do not seem to stop 

 in the Andamans. " 



Bingham writes from Tenasserim : " this bird being partially 

 migratory is often overlooked ; but it is common nearly all the year 

 round at Kaukarit on the Houndraw river. " 



Major Magrath in a letter to me from Bannu, dated 27th October 

 1907, says : " I shot examples of both Merops perskus and M. philip- 

 pinus. M. perskus breeds in great numbers somewhere near by 

 Bannu Cantonments, but I have not discovered where. M. philippinus 

 appeared to be passing through from breeding grounds somewhere 

 to the north or west. " 



The evidence then seems to point out to a migration nearly due 

 north in spring and south in autumn. The most southerly place in 

 India proper in which I can find a record of the nesting of this 

 species is Raipur— about Lat. 21°. But in Tenasserim, according to 

 Bingham, it nests as far south as Kaukarit, the latitude of which 

 appears to be about 11°. Those who are stationed in India south of 

 latitude 20° might profitably watch for any sigas of m.gration of this 

 species. 



