No. 4. — 1848.] SKETCHES IN NATURAL HISTORY. 



91 



hitherto been observed in Ceylon, and as the nidification of 

 the whole group requires investigation, I am induced to give 

 at length the observations which I have made upon this 

 species. My first acquaintance with it was on October 17, 

 1848, when I killed a specimen from a flock flying 

 over low paddy fields at Kotte. The bird was full fledged 

 and in good condition ; small flies, &c, were found in its mouth 

 and throat. Not having any means of identification I knew 

 not how to class it, as it did not strictly accord with any of 

 Swainson's characteristic marks of Cypselus or Hirundo. 

 During circuit at Kandy in November I obtained several 

 adult specimens. They appeared very numerous, flying at 

 a vast height over the hills surrounding the town.* 



I had previously heard that near Kalutara, somewhere in 

 the Pasdun Korale, the Chinese collected the nests of the 

 Edible Swallow ; but it never struck me that this was the 

 fabricator of the far-famed nests. In December, the late 

 Dr. Gardner, then Superintendent of the Government 

 Botanical Garden, proposed that I should accompany him 

 into the Pasdun Korale (whither he was going in search 

 of a rare fern) to inspect the cave where these swallows 

 were said to build. We accordingly left Kalutara on 

 December 18, and walked to Hevessa, a distance of 

 35 or 40 miles. We reached our destination in the evening 

 of the 20th, when we immediately ascended to the cave, 



writing the foregoing I have been studying the collocalia, or E. I. B., 

 and have come to some notable conclusions respecting them. First, the 

 Hiro. esculenta (L.), founded on one of Poivers' drawings, has, I am 

 satisfied, no prototype in nature, or, if anything, it must be a true 

 Hirundo, with white tail markings, erroneously supposed to be the 

 fabricators of the celebrated nests. Secondly, the H. nidifica of Latham 

 or II. esculenta (Apud Shaw, Hors, &c), is not the builder of them, 

 but the so-called H. Fuciphaga of Thunheyt, the various descriptions 

 of whose nidification, ana tnat ot Nidifica, requires to be transposed... " 



* With them appeared a huge swift, which I am inclined to think must 

 be Cypselus melba, from the whitish throat and belly. From the attitude 

 kept by these fine swifts I could not even get a shot at a single specimen. 



