160 BIRDS OF INDIA. 



Lower Bengal, and the countries to the eastward. It breeds in old 

 buildings, on walls, in stone bowries or wells, and very commonly 

 under bridges, and in rocks overhanging water, making a small nest, 

 open at the top, and laying two or three eggs, which are white, spar- 

 ingly spotted with rusty red. I always found the nests single, and we 

 seldom see more than five or six couple in one place. The Hindustani 

 name is given to it from a supposed resemblance of its thin tail 

 feather to the rod used for catching birds with bird-lime, which is 

 called Leishra. It is said also to occur in the North-east of Africa. 



2nd. — Cecropis, Bon. 



A. With the tail long and forked. 



85. Hirundo Daurica, Lm. 



Blyth, Cat. 1198 — Horsf., Cat. 113 — H. erythropygia, 

 Sykes, Cat. 27 — and Jerdon, Cat. 259 — H. Nipalensis, Hodgs. — 

 H. alpestris, Pallas, Z. K. A., 1. PI. 30, with a figure of the nest 

 also — 21asjid Abahil, H., i. e., Mosque Swallow. 

 The Ked-rumped Swallow. 



Descr. — Above, blue-black ; narrow supercilium, sides of the 

 head, behind the ear-coverts, and rump, ferruginous; beneath 

 rufescent-white, with dusky streaks; terminal half or third of 

 under tail-coverts abruptly black. Young, more dull in its tints 

 merely. 



Length about 1\ inches ; extent 13 ; wing 4^ ; tail 4. 



This Swallow is found over all India, rarely extending to Ceylon ; 

 but is more common in hilly or jungly districts than in the more open 

 plains ; and it is not so generally diifused anywhere as the last. Mr. 

 Hodgson says that "it is the common Swallow of Nepal, a household 

 creature, remaining with us for seven or eight months of the year." 

 Col. Sykes says, — "It appeared for two years in succession, in 

 countless numbers, on the parade ground at Poona; they rested 

 a day or two only, and were never seen in the same numbers 

 afterwards." I have seen them in every part of India, from the 

 extreme south to Darjeellng. A few couples, at all events, breed 

 in the South of India ; for I have seen their nests on a rock at 

 the Dimhutty water-fall on the Neilgherries, twenty or thirty 



