2 
gorges, this may often be seen skimming the surface of the wide sand-flats and sand-spits of the 
Dead Sea. It particularly affects the neighbourhood of Jebel Usdum, the salt-mountain, where 
it breeds. I possess only one egg, marked exactly like, but considerably smaller than that of the 
common Swallow.” 
In North-east Africa it is the common Crag-Martin of the country, as far as Egypt and 
Nubia are concerned; but there is no doubt that Cotyle rupestris also occurs in Abyssinia, as 
specimens collected by Mr. Blanford when on the Abyssinian expedition, which I have examined, 
are certainly referable to this latter species. Von Heuglin states (/. ¢.) that “it is resident in 
Egypt, Nubia, and Abyssinia, as also on the coast of Arabia and in the mountains of the Sinaitic 
peninsula; and Captain Shelley writes (B. of Egypt, p. 123) as follows :—‘‘ This species of Crag- 
Swallow is very plentifully distributed throughout Egypt and Nubia, where it is a resident. It 
only frequents the rocky districts, and is therefore of rare occurrence in the Delta, although at 
Cairo and the Pyramids it is abundant.” 
To the eastward it is found as far as Baluchistan, where it was met with by Mr. Blanford 
and Mr. A.O. Hume. The former gentleman, in his now forthcoming work on the ornithology 
of Persia, writes as follows:—“I have ascertained the identity of this form with Cabanis’s species, 
by comparison with the types in Berlin, and with specimens from North-eastern Africa in the 
British Museum. I obtained it in Sind about the same time as Mr. Hume did, and I subse- 
quently found it common throughout Balichistdn. I never saw it on the Persian highlands, 
where it appeared to be entirely replaced by C. rupestris, just as in Western and Central India it 
is represented by C. concolor, Sykes, a still smaller form. C. obsoleta is far from being so 
thorough a Crag-Martin as C. rupestris. I have often met with it about hills, but, I think, more 
frequently still in the neighbourhood of the broad stream-beds, usually dry, which intersect the 
desert plains of Balichistan, but which, from containing more vegetation than the surrounding 
country, afford a larger quantity of insect food to Swallows and Martins. C. obsoleta was very 
common in December and January along the sea-shore. I did not see much of it in its breeding- 
haunts, though the birds at Kalagan and Jalk in March were in pairs, hunting about particular 
spots as if building nests; and the males which I dissected had enlarged testes. They doubtless 
breed on rocks, like their allies.” Mr. A.O. Hume, who, when he obtained it in Sindh, described 
it as new, says (/.c.) that it is “very common along the course of the Gaj, the Nurrinai, and 
other small streams that issue from the bare stony hills that divide Sindh from Kelat. I found 
it again off the rocky headland of Minora, at the mouth of the Kurrachee harbour, and in similar 
localities along the Mekran coast. The flight is rapid, and the birds are somewhat difficult, as 
some of our party found, to bring to bag. I think I heard of a whole flask of shot being fired 
away without any tangible result.” 
In its habits the present species closely resembles Cotyle rupestris, which it replaces in 
North-east Africa and the desert country of Sindh and Baluchistan. Von Heuglin writes that it 
frequents the bare rocks and old burying-places, both in the vicinity of the coast and also at great 
elevations in the mountains, where he met with it as high as from 11,000 to 12,000 feet above 
the sea-level. Its flight is exceedingly swift and straight, though at times irregular, at times 
low over the surface of the desert, at others so high in the air that the eye can scarcely reach it. 
Owing to the pale coloration of the plumage of this bird, it seems in the bright sunshine to 
