308 
MEROPS PHILIPPINES. 
water. Mr. Holdswortli has observed it hunting close to the surface of the sea, at a distance of a quarter 
of a mile from the shore. Jerdou 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 scattei’ed 
flocks of about half a dozen, and often one or two birds constantly frequent the same locality. I he 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 T discovered one of these roosting-places ; the birds 
were flviug 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 
breeds 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 are 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/ I lie 
banks of the Nerbudda, Mahanuddee, Ganges, a stream near Baraich, and localities at Lahore, Nujgeebahad, 
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 
the holes.” The eggs are white, highly glossed, and very spherical ovals, averaging 088 by 076 inch. 
