184 HIETJNDINID^E. 



813. Hirundo rustica, Linn. The Swallow. 



Hirimdo rustica, Linn., Jerd. B. 2nd. i, p. 157 ; Hume, Rough 

 Draft N. $ E. no. 82. 



A few Swallows breed during April and May along the whole 

 line of the Himalayas from Cabool to Assam, at heights of from 

 4000 to 7000 feet. Rarely more than one or two pairs are found, 

 as far as my experience goes, breeding in the same immediate 

 neighbourhood anywhere to the eastward of Cashmere ; and, 

 indeed, eastwards of this happy valley it is only here and there that 

 they are met with. I myself have only seen them breeding near 

 Dhurumsalla, at two or three bungalows between Sooltanpoor in 

 Kooloo and Simla, and at Simla itself. Captain Cock first pointed 

 out to me that they breed near Dhurumsalla, where he procured 

 their eggs. From Murree I have received a nest, eggs, and both 

 parents ; from Almora, a single egg. Mr. Masson tells me he once 

 noticed a pair building near Darjeeling; and Colonel Godwin-Austen 

 writes that he found this species breeding at Asaloo in April, in the 

 high roofs of the Naga houses. The specimens shot were small, 

 only 12 inches in extent, and may have been H. yutturalis. Jerdon 

 mentions this bird as arriving early in July in Upper Burmah ; 

 they thus " probably breed along the whole line of high hills from 

 the Burrail and Patkoi Ranges into North Burmah, &c." 



In Cashmere they breed more numerously, from all T can learn, 

 than in any other part of the Himalayas. 



In Candahar, as Captain Hutton tells us, they breed abundantly. 



On the whole, it would appear that while a comparatively small 

 number breed here and there everywhere along the southern faces 

 of the Himalayas, the great majority of the vast numbers that 

 during the cold season throng the neighbourhoods of our jheels and 



half-cup shape, was fixed to one of the rafters which support the roof of the 

 verandah of one of the telegraph-buildings at Jask, on the Mekran coast ; and 

 in the same verandah were several nests of Hirundo rustica. The eggs were 

 white, sparingly sprinkled with small dusky specks, most numerous towards the 

 large end ; and the man who took them informed me that one or two pairs of 

 this bird breed there every year, but that they leave directly afterwards. No 

 date arrived with the eggs, but I believe they were taken in March. As I said 

 before, I cannot be sure of the species at present, as unfortunately the skins of 

 the bird that were secured at the time the eggs were taken were* destroyed by 

 rats, and consequently never reached me ; however, from the account of the 

 bird, which was described to me as ' a pale, dusky-coloured Martin,' and from 

 the man's recognizing the bird at once when I described P. obsoleta to him, and 

 from the fact of no other pale-coloured Martin (C. riparia, which breeds in 

 sand-banks, but not along that coast, being of course excepted) being known 

 along that coast, and that being common in the cold weather, I have little doubt 

 in my own mind that it belongs to the present species ; but I hope next year 

 to get skins of the old birds with the eggs, and then the matter will be settled." 

 The eggs are slightly elongated ovals, a little compressed towards one end ; 

 the snell is extremely fine and delicate, but has scarcely any appreciable gloss. 

 The shell is nearly pure white when blown, and is thickly speckled and spotted, 

 most thickly about the broad end, with a sort of sepia-brown, quite devoid of the 

 reddish tinge that is usually observable in the eggs of this family. 



