FIRST LIST OF THE BIRDS OF THE SOUTH KONKAN. 45 



and the second about the first week in April. The first harvest 

 yields about 141bs., and the second from 28 to 421bs. Either 

 the yield was overstated by Jerdon, or else the number of birds 

 has greatly diminished since he wrote ; half a hundredweight 

 is now the maximum outturn. 



None of the nests I Jiave ever got from the Vengorla rocks 

 are pure white. In April 1878 I sent my shikaree, to bring 

 nests, eggs and birds, and he returned with specimens of all 

 three. The birds were all Collocalia, and the nests all mixed 

 with grass and feathers, the saliva being pure only where the 

 nest is attached to the rock, and on the rim of the saucer. The 

 nests vary a good deal in size and shape. They are very 

 shallow, seldom deeper than half an inch, and have a diameter 

 of about two inches. Externally the saliva, freely mixed with 

 grass and feathers, is smooth and coagulated. Inside the cup 

 it forms a net-work of fine shreds. They look at a little dis- 

 tance exactly like deep oyster shells with one side flattened, 

 the saliva, where it is smoothed down, having a pearly 

 appearance. As this batch of nests was collected about a week 

 after the farmer had paid his last visit to the rocks to the 

 season, and had presumably left no nests worth taking, and 

 as the natives, who ought to have known, persisted in saying 

 that pure white nests were to be had at the first take, I could 

 come to no definite conclusion about the matter. However, in 

 February 1880, I sent my man again to the rocks, with the 

 farmer's people. They were there for three days, and returned 

 on the 28th with about 12 or 141bs. of nests which I exa- 

 mined. These nests were undoubtedly first nests, as not a 

 single egg had been laid. All were quite as impure and mixed 

 with grass and feathers as those I had got in the preceding 

 April, when there were eggs or young birds in every nest. The 

 farmer still held out that white nests are sometimes got. Of 

 course it is possible that a few pairs of spodiopygia may breed 

 in the same cave, but none of the specimens got were of this 

 species, and I think it is highly improbable that they occur. 

 Determined to sift the matter as closely as possible, I sent my 

 shikaree again with the farmer's people for the April take. He 

 spent three days on the rocks, from the 7th to 9th April, and 

 returned with about two dozen of the purest and comparatively 

 whitest nests that were found on this occasion, as well as eggs 

 and specimens of Collocalia. The nests were all mixed with 

 grass and feathers precisely as before. 



The evidence, therefore, is now pretty complete, and shews 

 conclusively that this Collocalia does not make pure white nests 

 at any rate in this locality. The Vengorla nests are all des- 

 patched to Goa iu the first instance, but I have not yet ascer- 



