308 MEROPS PH1LIPPINUS. 



water. Mr. Holdsworth has observed it hunting close to the surface of the sea, at a distance of a quarter 

 of a mile from the shore. Jerdon notices its habit of congregating together, and writes that on one occasion 

 he saw an " immense flock of them, probably many thousands, at Caroor, on the road from Trinchinopoly to 

 the Nilghiris." They were sallying out from the trees lining the road for half an hour or so, capturing insects, 

 and then returning to them again. As a rule they do not consort in close company, but live in scattered 

 flocks of about half a dozen, and often one or two birds constantly frequent the same locality. The note is 

 difficult to describe. Jerdon not inaptly speaks of it as " a full mellow rolling whistle." This Bee-eater retires 

 late to roost, collecting to one spot from many miles round, and forming a large colony which pass the night 

 in thickly foliaged trees or bushes. On Karativoe Island I discovered one of these roosting-places ; the birds 

 were flying over from the mainland some miles distant, and continued to arrive from various points on the 

 opposite coast until it was too dark to distinguish them on the wing. They resorted to the borders of a 

 small back-water beneath the high sand hills of the island, which was lined with mangrove-trees, the thick 

 branches of which afforded them a safe refuge. 



Nidification. — Mr. Hume writes, in 'Nests and Eggs ' (Rough Draft), that " the Blue-tailed Bee-eater 

 : s from March until June pretty well all over continental India, in well-cultivated and open country. Like 

 all the rest of the family it breeds in holes in banks, and lays usually four or five eggs. The holes arc rarely less 

 than four feet deep, and I have known them to extend to seven feet. At the far extremity a rounded chamber, 

 as a rule not less than six inches in diameter, is hollowed out for the eggs, and at times this chamber has a 

 thin lining of grass and feathers, which I have never yet met with in the nests of the other species." The 

 banks of the Nerbudda, Mahanuddee, Ganges, a stream near Baraieh, and localities at Lahore, Nujgecbahad, 

 and Mirzapore are cited as breeding-places of the species ; and Mr. Hume himself found a colony established 

 in a railway-cutting at Agra, where the engines " passed twenty times a day within two feet of the mouths of 

 lioles." The eggs are white, highly glossed, and very spherical ovals, averaging 0-88 by 07G inch. 



