Dr. Jerdon says on the other hand:—­“I have procured the nest of this bird situated on a palmyra tree on the stem of the leaf.  It was a deep cup-shaped nest, made of grass, leaves, and numerous feathers, and contained two eggs, white with a greenish tinge, and with light brown spots, chiefly at the larger end.  I see that Mr. Layard procured the nest in Ceylon, where this bird is common, in the heads of cocoanut trees, made of fibres and grasses, and it was probably the nest of this bird that was brought to Tickell as that of the Palm-Swift.”

According to Mr. Hodgson this species begins to lay in March, the young being fledged in June; the nest is a broad shallow saucer, from 6 to 8 inches in diameter, composed of grass and roots, together with a little lichen, loosely put together, a green leaf or two being sometimes found as a lining to the nest.  The nest is placed on some broad horizontal branch, where two or three slender twigs or shoots grow out of it, or on the top of some stump of a tree, or broken end of a branch, generally, at a considerable height from the ground.  The eggs are figured as white, spotted and blotched almost exclusively at the large end with yellowish brown, and measuring 0.8 by 0.52 inch, but no actual measurements are recorded.

Mr. Gammie, however, himself found, and kindly sent me, a nest and eggs of this species, at Mongpho near Darjeeling, at an elevation of about 3500 feet, on the 13th May, 1873.  It was placed in the hole of a trunk of a dead tree at a height of about 40 feet from the ground, and it contained three hard-set eggs.  The nest was a loose shallow saucer of coarse roots devoid of lining.  The eggs were rather narrow ovals, a good deal pointed towards one end; the shell fine and with a slight gloss.  The ground-colour was creamy white, and the markings, which are almost entirely confined to a broad ring round the large end and the space within it, consisted of spots and clouds of very pale yellowish brown, intermingled with clouds and specks of excessively pale, nearly washed out, lilac.

He subsequently furnished me with the following note from Sikhim:—­“In the hills this bird is migratory, coming about the last week in February and leaving in the last week of October.  It is exceedingly abundant on the outer ridges running in from the Teesta Valley, and most numerous about the elevation of 3000 feet, but stragglers get up as high as 5000 feet.  It prefers dry ridges on which there are a few scattered tall trees, from the tops of which it can make short flights, over the open country, after insects.  It goes very little abroad in the height of the day, and feeds principally in the evenings.  It rarely keeps on the wing for more than a minute or two at a time, but occasionally will fly for ten minutes on end.  It is quite as bold and persevering in its habit of attacking and driving off hawks and kites as the king-crow.  Towards the end of September it begins to congregate in rows along dead branches in the tops of trees.