THE SWALLOWS AND SWIFTS. 4 1 



clustered together, and so stuck over with feathers on 

 the outside that they look like one great, fluffy mass ; 

 but each of them has its own private entrance at the 

 side. These are not only cradles for eggs and young, 

 but dwellings in which the birds live all the year 

 round. Regularly every evening the community 

 gathers together, and after spending some time in play- 

 ful evolutions in the air, as Jerdon says, " with much 

 fluttering of their wings and a good deal of twittering 

 talk," one after another swoops, with a "shivering 

 scream," and pops into its bed. When there are young 

 to be fed (which may be at any season, for they seem 

 to have several broods in the year), the parent birds 

 are coming and going all the day. Only two or three 

 eggs are laid at a time, which are white, like the 

 eggs of all Swifts. The Common Indian Swift is a 

 black, or blackish, bird, with the chin and the small 

 of the back pure white, so it need not be mistaken for 

 any other bird. Its tail is short and square. 



I have seen other Swifts and Swallows in Bombay. 

 Of the Cliff Swallow ( Hirundo flimicola) I am 

 certain, and I think I have seen a Crag Martin about 

 Malabar Hill which was larger and paler than the 

 common one. Then there is that grand bird, the 

 Alpine Swift ( Cypselus melba), which I have shot 

 within a few miles of Bombay. But a bird that gets 

 up before daylight and goes to bed long after dark 

 and flies all day at a hundred miles an hour may be 

 seen anywhere. 



