190 HIRTJNDINID^. 



rusty red, I al\va_ys i'oimcl the nest single, and we seldom see 

 more than five or six couples in one place."' 



Major 0. T. Bingham says : — " I have found many nests of this 

 beautiful vSwallow under the bridges on both the eastern and 

 western Jumna canals at Delhi. They are half-saucers of mud 

 lined with straw and a few soft feathers. On the 27th May eleAen 

 nests that 1 took contained three eggs each and more than half of 

 them bard-set, so that I should say the bird breeds about Dellii 

 in April and May." 



Mr. James Aitken, writing of this Swallow, says: — "This spe- 

 cies supplies in Berar the place of H. rustica, which it so strongly 

 resembles in its habits. It seems to be even fonder of water, 

 indeed it rarely leaves it, skimming over the surface with a speed 

 matching that of the Swift, its metallic colours flashing in the sun. 

 It is a permanent resident, and breeds from February till June. 

 The nest is a mere shallow saucer built under a rock or wall, some- 

 times even an earthy bank at the v^'aterside, and it exhibits in the 

 construction all the forethought and patience of its English rela- 

 tive. The first nest I watched took four weeks to complete, a 

 narrow layer of mud being added cautiously each day and left to 

 dry. When this part of the business was complete, a lining of fine 

 grass was added, then one of feathers, and on this were laid three 

 long-shaped eggs, of a white colour, well spotted with dark reddish 

 brown. 1 confess to having been guilty of the cruelty of taking 

 two of these for my collection, but the faithful little bird continued 

 still to sit, and 1 liad afterwards the satisfaction of seeing the re- 

 maining egg hatched and the young one fledged. Long after they 

 are able to fly the young are fed in the air by the old birds 

 exactly after the mam^er of the English Swallow, parents and 

 young circling round and round and then, with a complacent 

 twitter, clinging together for an instant, during which the mouthful 

 of insects is transferred from one to the other." 



Mr. Benjau)in Aitken tells us that he has " observed the nidifi- 

 cation of the Wire-tailed Swallow only on the river at Akola." 



" One pair bad a nest on the 23rd December, 1SG9, but I did 

 not examine it. On the 7th of January (1870) another pair 

 were building a nest. 



" Three eggs were taken from a nest in the beginning of Eebruary 

 1870. The birds at once began a new nest against a rock a few 

 yards off from the first place, and successfully reared three young. 



"On the 26th July, 1870, I made a note that the Wire-tailed 

 Swallow had almost disappeared from Akola ; they had been com- 

 mon on the river in the dry season." 



Colonel Butler says : — " I found a nest of the Wire-tailed 

 Swallow at Deesa on the 10th August, 1875, fastened to the brick- 

 work of a well, but could not ascertain its contents, as I could not 

 induce any of the coolies to go down and take it. 1 took another 

 nest out of the same well on the 11th August the following year 

 (1876) containing two eggs very slightly incubated. It was a half- 

 cup, built of mud and thickly lined with feathers, and fastened to 



