4 



during the cold weather, and their nesting-holes are to be seen in all the high banks. 

 It breeds in February and March, and by the end of April all have left the district. 



The Hume collection contains specimens from E.aipur and the Sumbulpur district 

 in the Central Provinces, and Prof. Valentine Ball obtained specimens of the species in 

 the latter locality. 



Colonel Swinhoe and Lieut. Barnes, writing on the birds of the Mhow district, 

 observe : — " The Indian Sand-Martin is very common, and is a permanent resident, 

 breeding in January and February in holes excavated by the birds themselves in the 

 sandy banks of the river. The holes are from 18 to 2i inches in depth." 



Mr. J. Davidson, in his rough list of the birds of Western Khandeish, writes as 

 follows : — " Common in Taloda, Shada, and Nandurbar in the cold weather. I think it 

 left the district in the hot weather, but find nothing about it in my notes and cannot 

 remember. It bred abundantly along the Tapti in November and December." Messrs. 

 Davidson and Wenden, in their notes on the Avifauna of the Deccan, state that it is 

 tolerably common in that part of India. At Sangola it breeds singly, in river-banks, in 

 December. On the banks of the Bhima, Mr. Davidson got a single nest with three fresh 

 eggs in March. 



Colonel Butler includes it as a permanent resident in the Bombay Presidency. He 

 says it is " common, as a rule, in suitable localities throughout the region, but not as yet 

 recorded from Eatnagiri. It probably avoids the forest tracts." Mr. Fairbank, in his 

 list of birds from the vicinity of Khandala, records the species from near Satara, and 

 the Hume collection contains a specimen from Rahuri in the Ahmednuggur district, 

 procured on the 23rd of March. 



In Colonel Legge's ' Birds of Ceylon,' mention is made of the occurrence of a Sand- 

 Martin in that island, which had been observed by Mr. Bligh on several occasions during 

 the north-east monsoon. Colonel Legge suggests that the species may have been Cotile 

 ohsoleta, but it is .just as likely to have belonged to the present species. 



In Burmah, Mr. Blyth states that it is common along the rivers, where it holds the 

 place of C. riparia of Europe. Captain Wardlaw Bamsay found it near Tonghoo. 

 Mr. Gates says that it is comxnon in Aracan and Pegu in the neighbourhood of all the 

 large rivers. Mr. Davison procured two specimens at Pahpoon, in Northern Tenasserim, 

 in January, but says that it is rare in the province. He writes : — " I never saw it in 

 the Gyne, Hongthraw, Attaran, or any of the more southern streams ; in fact, I only 

 observed it at Pahpoon, where they occurred in moderate numbers. When I was leaving 

 Pahpoon, about the end of February, these birds were just commencing to excavate their 

 nest-holes in the banks of the Younzaleen." 



Dr. Anderson shot a couple of specimens on a little sandy promontory in the second 

 defile of the Irawady. According to Dr. Tiraud it is common in Cochin China, and 

 Abbe David states that it is spread over Southern China, and that he met with it in the 

 south of Chensi, immediately after the melting of the snow, so that he supposes that it 

 must winter in the hotter portions of tlie Celestial Empire. 



