MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 495 



in the middle of the river. Thinking I had seen nothing, I took no further 

 notice, but went on with my tiffin. Five minutes after I again saw it jump 

 up into the air some distance off. Then I left my tiffin and found the fish 

 travelling over the gravel on its belly, moving rather slowly by means of its 

 lower fins. I took it up by its tail. I found the skin quite dry. It at once 

 wriggled loose. Again I took it up more firmly by the tail and put it into a 

 small gravelly pool about three inches deep but too shallow fcxr it to swim in. 

 Then I took it out of the pool by its tail and dropped it into a pool three 

 feet deep, where it immediately went to the bottom and remained motion- 

 less like a pike. I could see it at the bottom of this deep pool during the hour 

 I remained at the bridge. The fish was fully twelve inches long and weighed 

 over one pound. The river was dry except for the two pools I have 

 mentioned, one of which was too shallow for the fish to swim in. Hence the 

 reason for its going on its travels. The heat on the hot gravel was very great. 

 I have on a flat terrace roof in Bombay registered 140° Fahr. with a 

 thermometer laid on the roof. The heat on this gravelly bed must have been 

 at least as great. 



This fish had a dry hard skin. I do not recollect there being scales on its 

 skin unless they were quite small. It was in perfectly good condition. 



I suppose my word will be taken for the above description. I had with 

 me a well-known pleader of Eajkot, also a well-known contractor of that 

 place and four other people connected with the contractor, who all saw what 

 I did and expressed their great surprise at a fish travelling on dry land in the 

 great heat of after mid-day. I judge that the fish was leaping for the 

 purpose of seeing which way it was travelling. 



D. GOSTLING, FJ3.A, 



Bombay, 18th April, 1895. 



No. XIV— THE EDIBLE-NEST SWIFT. 



I think it was eight or nine years ago that Mr. G. W. Vidal presented the 

 museum of this Society with a skin and some eggs of that curious bird, 

 Colloealia unicolor, Jerdon, which supplies the Chinese with the luxury of 

 bird-nest soup. They were obtained from the Vingorla Rocks off the 

 Rutnagherry coast. I believe that the China market is supplied mainly from 

 the Indian Archipelago, and some account of the one place on our coast at 

 which the bird breeds may be interesting to the ornithological members of the 

 Society. The Burnt Islands, or Vingorla Rocks, consist of five or six small 

 islands about nine miles from Vingorla, but not more than four miles from 

 the coast in a direct line, the chief importance of which, from a nautical point 

 of view, is that one of the principal lighthouses on the coast stands upon 

 one ■ of them. < Their area is very small, and the height of the largest is only 

 110 feet. Rising abruptly out of deep water, they are accessible only when 

 the sea is very smooth. Nothing grows on them except coarse grass, and 

 there are of course no wild beasts, nor probably any snakes. The security 



