MALAYAN ORNITHOLOGY, 128 
on the ice. I never heard the bird utter them while it was flying, 
occasionally when squatting on the ground, but more often from a 
post or dead tree—the same bird frequenting the same position 
night after night, much to one’s annoyance if it happens to select 
a place near one’s bed-room window. 
When I was in camp at Kwala Kangsa, one of these Nightjars 
came every evening to an old seat of tree-trunks within ten yards 
of my hut, and made such a “chunking” as to render sleep im- 
possible. So, after putting up with it for several nights, at last 
(one evening when it was particularly noisy) I took out my 
oun and shot it; and from that time the nuisance ceased, and 
I slept in peace. One of my Pérak specimens, a male, shot 
on 10th March, 1877, measured slightly under 12 inches; irides 
dark-brown ; rictal bristles white at their bases; upper plumage 
ash-brown, minutely speckled with a darker shade of the same 
colour ; bold longitudinal dashes on the crown, nape. and sca- 
pulars, also dark-brown blotches on central tail-feathers ; chin, 
face, and nape rufous-brown; bar across primaries, the ends 
of outer tail-feathers and of under tail-coverts, also triangular 
patch on the throat pure white; beneath dull rufous-brown, pale 
on abdomen, and barred with dusky-brown. 
Merors guinticotor (Vieill.) ; and M. Bapivus (Gm.). 
I obtained both these birds on the banks of the Pérak river, also 
at Malacca and Singapore. 
On reference to my note-book I find :—“ Kwala Kangsa, Pérak, 
15 Feb., 1877. Saw several Bee-eaters near the river; two of 
them kept flying about a leafless tree, now and then resting on its 
topmost branches; wanting specimens, I shot them both, and 
found them to be IW. quinticolor, not unlike the European JZ. 
apiaster. One of these birds, a male, measured 8 inches in length; 
head and nape pale ruddy chestnut, wings bluish-green ; chin and 
throat pale-yellow, bounded below by a dark bar ; lower back and 
upper tail-coverts pale-blue, tending to white. 
“Tts stomach contained beetles and small flies.”’ 
“ Kwala Kangsa, Pérak, 25 Feb., 1877. Close to camp I came 
on several Bee-eaters, which were flying about a sand-bank near 
the river; they were of two species—M. quinticolor and M. badius, 
