FIRST LIST OF THE BIRDS OF THE SOUTH KONKAN. 47 



cave, more especially as he mentions the presence of the 

 Pigeons, which, I am told, do not inhabit the same cave as the 

 Swiftlets. 



[I certainly failed to find this smaller cave, but I rowed 

 all about amongst the larger rocks, and failed to see a single 

 Swiftlet. Had there been a dozen even about the rocks at 

 the time I visited them (February 4th) between the hours of 

 10 a.m. and 5 p.m., the whole of which time I spent either 

 rowing in amongst or clambering over the rocks, I must 

 have seen them. But it has to be noted that Jerdon tells 

 us that he similarly, at Pigeon Island, failed to see a sin ale 

 bird; but was told by a native that they would return bv 

 8 or 9 p.m., which native that night actually caught numbers 

 of the birds on their return, so that my failure to see any 

 may have been due solely to their being away in quest of food. 



Mr. Vidal's investigations are important. It will be remem- 

 bered that the Marquess of Tweeddale united the present 

 species imicolor, and the species I identified as spodiopygia, 

 (and other equally distinct species according to my view) 

 under the name, at one time, of francica, at another of fuciphaga. 

 As explained, S. F., I., 294, I did not consider the name 

 fuciphaga, which refers to some species of " cauda rotundata" 

 applicable to any known species. This, however, was a matter of 

 no moment ; the real point at issue was the specific distinctness 

 of the two forms above referred to. To me it seemed impos- 

 sible for any one who had watched the two in life, or who 

 even carefully examined a good series of both, to doubt this 

 fact ; but as an additional proof of the distinctness of the two 

 I asserted that in every instance in which we had found them 

 breeding, the nests of imicolor had been composed of moss, 

 grass feathers and the like, cemented together by saliva, while 

 those of spodiopygia were snowy white and entirely composed 

 of saliva. But the flaw in this argument admittedly was, 

 that I had only obtained the nests of unicolor far inland, in 

 the Nilghiris and other hills of Southern India, while I had 

 only procured those of spodiopygia on the sea coast or on 

 islands. It might be that unicolor, when living in similar 

 situations, would assume the different tint of plumage and 

 whitey brown rump of spodiopygia, and also construct the 

 pure white nests. But now here on the Vengorla rocks, 

 miles out at sea, we have unicolor absolutely identical with 

 specimens from the Nilghiris, and practically identical with 

 those from the Himalayas (though there is just a shade of 

 difference in the colour of these last), and constructing nests 

 mixed with straw and feathers, precisely similar to those that 

 they make hundreds of miles inland. 



