THE BIRDS OF NORTH CACHAR, 559 



ia a very fetid smell about the nests which will warn any one against 

 uselessly expending energy and time in such cases. The length of 

 the burrows seems to vary from three feet to seven, or even more when 

 the ground is very soft and sandy. 



I believe five is the full number of eggs laid, but have been so unfor- 

 tunate in obtaining eggs that I cannot be at all sure. I took five just 

 showing signs of incubatiouj though very slightly, in April, 1892, and 

 saw five very hard set. 



In December, 1893, I found this bird haunting a dead tree beside a 

 road some five miles from Gunjong. The two birds were so constantly 

 about this tree and always in and out of a large hole in it that I am 

 sure they intended to lay their eggs in it, though I had unfortunately 

 to leave the district before I could ascertain the fact for certain. This 

 species has always been supposed to breed in trees, but I had hitherto 

 doubted their so doing. Major Bingham once saw a bird fly out of a 

 hole in a tree, but there were no eggs or young in it, and the chips 

 and feathers he did find might have belonged to some other bird, and 

 this I was the more inclined to believe was the case in that in 

 November, 1892, I shot a bird which flew out of a large hollow in a 

 cotton-tree whose stomach was full of lice and similar insects, such as 

 would have to be sought for in holes, crevices, etc. 



The eggs, of which I have only seen eleven, are not to be distinguished, 

 when taken, in any way from those of Halcyon smyrnensisj unless 

 perhaps they are very slightly less glossy. After they have been kept 

 some time, they lose their polished appearance far more than the king- 

 fisher's eggs do, and those taken by me in April, 1892, are much less 

 glossy than some of the latter bird's eggs more than twice as old. 



The texture is not quite so compact as in the eggs of H. smyrnensis, 

 and ink soon soaks into the shell if it is written on. They are in shape 

 just the same as are all the eggs of bee-eaters, and the average of seven 

 is l-22"xl-07", the length varying between 1'08" and 1-32" and the 

 breadth between 1-02" and 1-12". 



This bird is to be found in small numbers over nearly the whole of 

 Cachar, though it is rare in the plains, and nowhere is it as numerous 

 as the great number of burrows met with would seem to indicate. As 

 a rule it is either solitary or keeps in pairs, but now and then four or 

 fiive congregate together, though it is doubtful if these flocks keep in 



