332 
Birds of Celelies: Cypselidae. 
Skeleton. 
Greatest breadth of cranium 
Length of humerus . . . 
Lengtli of ulna . 
Length of radius 
Length of manus 
Length of femur 
Length of cranium 
23.0 mm Length of tibia 
12.5 » Length of tarso-metatarsus . 
8.4 » Length of sternum. . . . 
12.0 » Greatest breadth of sternum 
11.0 » Height of crista sterni . . 
27.2 » Length of pelvis .... 
12.5 » Greatest breadth of pelvis . 
19.0 mm 
9.5 » 
16.0 » 
11.0 » 
9.0 » 
16.5 » 
14.5 » 
Eggs. Nilghhis, S. India — usually 2 in number, dull, almost wholly glossless white, as a 
rule slender elongated ovals, almost cylindrical, sometimes absolutely cyhndrical; at 
times slightly pyriform: 20 — 22.8 X 13.5 — 14.7 mm, average size 21 X 13.7 (Hume 
c 2); 20 — 22 X 13.5 mm (Nehrkorn MS.). The eggs are similarly described by 
other writers. 
Nest. Composed of the saliva of the bird — in India mixed with moss and feathers (Hume 
c 2), in Borneo mixed, aiiparently, ivith the substance of a giun-like Alga (Pryer 
6, 8). Breeds hi caves, usually in vast colonies. 
Distribution. Prom India south-east to New Caledonia and the New Hebrides, and from 
Ceylon and the Andamans east to the Marianne and Caroline Islands (see Salvad. 
4, 10\ AVg. 12, e 2). Recorded from Celebes: Macassar (AVallace) by AValden (2) 
and Hartert (15). 
The members of the genus Collocalia are , like all Swifts , birds of great 
flying - powers , and, as is usually the case with such they do not conform to 
the geographical bounds which may be drawn for ill -flying species or for species 
sedentary for other reasons. Nevertheless it is found that several species have 
very restricted ranges, while others, C. Jrancica and C.esculenta, are, like the 
present species, widely distributed. The Collocaliae are, apparently, restricted 
to districts where there are rocks and caves suitable for them to roost and breed 
in; these they haunt in common with bats. From the thick deposits of guano 
on the floors of some of these caves it is evident that they have been in use 
for a long period; in a cave in Ceylon the guano-deposit was, as Colonel 
Legge was informed, 30 feet thick, and Pryer mentions (0) that a pole thrust 
down 18 feet into the deposit on the floor of the great cave “Simud Putech” 
of North Borneo did not reach the bottom. This cave is described by Daly 
(P. Z. S. 1888, 110), as being from 850 to 900 feet in depth, coated with a 
layer of guano of from 5 to 15 feet deep. The birds are remarkable for their 
adhesiveness to any selected roosting or nesting spot; in certain parts the species 
are migratory visiting their breeding-caves and leaving them regularly; and 
Davison describes a case (Str. F. II, 159) where “a large number of these 
birds had taken up their sleeping quarters against the roof of a shed on A’iper 
Island, Port Blair, occupying about a square yard of the surface; this place 
they continued to occupy till the shed was destroyed, when, of course, they 
disappeared; but after a time another shed was built exactly on the same site, 
and as soon as the rooflng was completed back came all the Collocalias and 
re-occupied the same spot on the roof of the ne\v shed as they had occupied 
in the old”. The same excellent observer describes the attempts of a pair, 
