160 BIRDS OF INDIA. 



Lower Benc^al, and the countries to the eastward. It breeds in old 

 buildings, on walls, in stone bowries or wells, and very commonly 

 under bridges, and in rocks overhanging water, making a small nest, 

 open at the top, and laying tAvo or three eggs, which are white, spar- 

 ingly spotted with rusty red. I always found the nests single, and we 

 seldom see more than five or six couple in one place. The Hindustani 

 name is given to it from a supposed resemblance of its thin tail 

 feather to the rod used for catching birds with bird-lime, which is 

 called Leishra. It is said also to occur in the North-east of Africa. 



2nd. — Cecropis, Bon. 



A. With the tail long and forked. 



85. Hirundo Daurica, Lin. 



Blyth, Cat, 1198 — Horsf., Cat. 113 — H. erythropygia, 

 Sykes, Cat. 27 — and Jerdon, Cat. 259 — H. Nipalensis, Hodgs.— ^ 

 H. alpestris, Pallas, Z. R. A., 1. PL 30, with a figure of the nest 

 also — Masjid Abahil, H., i. e., Mosque Swallow. 

 The Eed-rumped Swallow. 



Descr. — Above, blue-black ; narrow supercilium, sides of the 

 head, behind the ear-coverts, and rump, ferruginous ; beneath 

 rufescent-white, with dusky streaks; terminal half or third of 

 under tail-coverts abruptly black. Young, more dull in its tints 

 merely. 



Length about 7^ inches ; extent 13 ; wing 4^ ; tail 4. 



This Swallow is fovmd over all India, rarely extending to Ceylon ; 

 but is more common in hilly or jungly districts than in the more open 

 plains ; and it is not so generally diffused anywhere as the last. Mr. 

 Hodgson says that "it is the common Swallow of Nepal, a household 

 creature, remaining with us for seven or eight months of the year." 

 Col. Sykes says, — "It appeared for two years in succession, in 

 countless numbers, on the parade ground at Poona; they rested 

 a day or two only, and were never seen in the same numbers 

 afterwards." I have seen them in every part of India, from the 

 extreme south to Darjeeling. A few couples, at all events, breed 

 in the South of India ; for I have seen their nests on a rock at 

 the Dirahutty water-fall on the Neilgherries, twenty or thiitv 



