HORSFIELD'S SWIFTLET. 11 



It is very difficult to ascertain what the distribution of Horsfield's 

 Swiftlet is. In the British Museum there are specimens from Java, 

 Borneo and Cape York on the north coast of Australia. Mr. Hume 

 records it from Johore in the Malay peninsula, and Mr. Wallace from 

 Malacca. It has probably a very wide range like C. spodiopyyia. 



Writing of these birds in the Andaman Islands, Mr. Davison says : 

 " They are very familiar birds, entering houses and even occasionally 

 trying to form their nests in inhabited rooms. I have known a pair fly 

 into a room and take up their quarters for the night in a corner against 

 the roof, regardless of people passing in and out with lights ; generally, 

 however, they roost in company, and one favourite spot is in the Saw -Mills 

 at Chatham Island, Port Blair. Here, towards the close of the day, they 

 assemble in vast numbers, flying in and out of the building, all the while 

 keeping up a continual twitter. It is curious with what pertinacity these 

 birds will return to a place they have once chosen for roosting. Mr. Hum- 

 fray informed me that a large number of these birds had taken up their 

 sleeping-quarters against the roof of a shed in Viper Island, Port Blair, 

 occupying about a square yard of the surface ; this place they continued 

 to occupy till the shed was destroyed, when, of course, they all disappeared ; 

 but after a time another shed was built exactly on the same site, and as 

 soon as the roofing was completed, back came all the Collocalm and 

 reoccupied the same spot on the roof of the new shed as they had occupied 

 in the old ; and this spot they were still occupying when I was at Port 

 Blair. It is remarkable the small amount of space that a very large 

 number of these birds will occupy ; they all cluster together like a huge 

 swarm of bees, clinging to the bare boards of the roof in a wonderful 

 manner." 



It was long thought that this Swiftlet was the one which made the 

 ordinary edible nest held in so much esteem in the China market. Mr. 

 Hume, during his visit to the Andaman Islands, discovered, however, that 

 the nest of Horsfield's Swiftlet was made of moss agglutinated with saliva, 

 and was consequently not the one collected by the nest-farmers for sale. 

 The nest is a shallow, flat-bottomed half-saucer, and it is placed not only 

 in caves, but also inside houses and mills. 



