AFTER THE ADJUTANTS. 25 



dish-brown, the feathers mostly tipped with olive-green ; wings 

 ultramarine blue ; secondaries (except the innermost already 

 mentioned) and primaries are black on their inner webs, 

 greenish-blue on their outer ; abdomen, flanks and thighs indigo 



bl 1 "1 



me ; under tail-coverts white ; bill, head-shield, legs and feet 



red. Total length, 18 inches ; wing, 95 ; tail, 3'5 ; bill at gape, 



1*5 ; width of head-shield at posterior margin, 0*87 ; tarsus, 



3-25 ; middle toe, 337 ; claw, 0'75. 



\fUic ijje %h$xtmt$. 



By C. T. Bingham. 



To the south-east of Moulmein, about twenty-five miles up 

 the Attaran River, a low but excessively steep and scarped 

 range of limestone rocks, called the Needong hills, run nearly 

 at right angles to the river on the north bank, and overhanging 

 the water present a strikingly bold and picturesque outline. 

 On the south bank this range is broken into four or five iso- 

 lated masses rising abruptly from the surrounding plain. 



In the latter end of November and in December these almost 

 inaccessible cliffs afford safe nesting sites to the two species of 

 Adjutants, Leptoptilus argala etjavanica. 



Last January, twelvemonth, while going up the Attaran River 

 on a shooting trip with a friend, I had seen the Adjutant in 

 immense numbers feeding their young on the topmost pinnacles 

 of these rocks ; and, concluding from this that their laying time 

 must be some time in November or December, I there and then 

 determined to make a raid on their nests at the end of the year. 

 Detained by my duties in the frontier forests till the first week 

 in November, and having on my return to Moulmein a lot of 

 work to do, I began to fear that for this year I should be un- 

 able to carry out my project. 



However an opportunity at last presented itself on the 27th 

 of November. Mr. K., a botanist en-route to Penang and 

 Malacca, happened to touch here and put up with my " Chief." 

 The steamer on board of which he was a passenger being 

 likely to be detained here four days, Mr. K. expressed a wish 

 to make a trip to some of the limestone hills in the vicinity of 

 Moulmein in order to investigate their botany. 



As some one had to accompany him, I was deputed to the 

 task, and was only too delighted, as it would enable me to carry 

 out my long-cherished scheme against the Adjutants. I went 

 and saw Mr. K. and settled preliminaries. A Kalah, or 



4 



