Ornithological Notes from Afghanistan. ~ 49 
The Crag-Martin was abundant in the valley in June, and 
apparently nesting in the cliffs near our camp. The only 
- specimen preserved is very markedly paler in every way than 
a specimen from Jericho, but agrees with it in measure- 
ments. It is in colour more like C. fuligula, Hartlaub, from 
South Africa. It is not Cotile obsoleta, Cabanis. 
(99) CyPsELUS APUS. 
Cypselus apus, Linn. Syst. Nat. 1. p. 344 (1766). 
Cypselus pekinensis, Swinhoe, P. 4.8. 1870, p. 435. 
The Common Swift was very abundant in our part of 
Afghanistan, more especially about the summits of the 
mountains. On Matungi (12,600 feet), an offshoot of the 
Safed-Koh, I found them in great numbers, darting and 
shrieking round the rocks at the summit. 
(120) Merors rersicvs, Pallas. 
I never obtained this Bee-eater, but observed large parties 
im process of migration at the end of April and beginning of 
May (vide Ibis, 1879, p. 446). 
(121) Merrops aPIAsTER. 
Merops apiaster, Linn. Syst. Nat. 1. p. 182 (1766). 
I first observed the European Bee-eater on the 5th June, 
after which it became quite common in the Hariab valley. 
On the 22nd of the same month I found it very common 
between Kurrum fort and the Peiwar Kotul, where neither 
trees nor shrubs are to be seen for miles. The birds were 
sitting on the ground and darting up at imsects occasionally. 
In Dresser’s ‘ Birds of Europe,’ pt. lxiv., a note by Mr. W. 
Blanford shows that he has observed the same thing in Belu- 
chistan. Up to the 10th July, when I left the Kurrum 
valley, these birds were not breeding ; nor, indeed, did I see 
any place at all suitable for the purpose. 
Surgeon-Major Aitchison, of the Indian Medical Depart- 
ment, the botanist to the Kurrum Expedition, informed me 
that in a village near the base of the Safed-Koh the villagers 
said that sometimes in the month of June, when the Bee- 
eaters arrive, they come down in great numbers to rob the 
bees from the hives, and that the people had to keep con- 
SER. IV.—VOL. IV. E 
