The swifts are not the only birds engaged in rearing up young in our verandahs.  Sparrows and doves are so employed, as are the wire-tailed swallows (Hirundo smithii).  These last are steel-blue birds with red heads and white under plumage.  They derive the name “wire-tailed” from the fact that the thin shafts of the outer pair of tail feathers are prolonged five inches beyond the others and look like wires.  Wire-tailed swallows occasionally build in verandahs, but they prefer to attach their saucer-shaped mud nests to the arches of bridges and culverts.

With a nest in such a situation the parent birds are not obliged to go far for the mud with which the nest is made, or for the insects, caught over the surface of water, on which the offspring are fed.

The nesting season of wire-tailed swallows is a long one.  According to Hume these beautiful birds breed chiefly in February and March and again in July, August and September.  However, he states that he has seen eggs as early as January and as late as November.  In the Himalayas he has obtained the eggs in April, May and June.

The present writer’s experience does not agree with that of Hume.  In Lahore, Saharanpur and Pilibhit, May and June are the months in which most nests of this species are likely to be seen.  The writer has found nests with eggs or young on the following dates in the above-mentioned places:  May 13th, 15th, 16th, 17th; June 6th and 28th.

The nest of June 28th was attached to a rafter of the front verandah of a bungalow at Lahore.  The owner of the house stated that the swallows in question had already reared one brood that year, and that the birds in question had nested in his verandah for some years.  There is no doubt that some wire-tailed swallows bring up two broods.  Such would seem to breed, as Hume says, in February and March and again in July and August.  But, as many nests containing eggs are found in May, some individuals appear to have one brood only, which hatches out in May or June.

Those useful but ugly fowls, the white scavenger vultures (Neophron ginginianus), depart from the ways of their brethren in that they nidificate in March and April instead of in January and February.  The nest is an evil-smelling pile of sticks, rags and rubbish.  It is placed on some building or in a tree.

The handsome brahminy kites (Haliastur indicus), attired in chestnut and white, are now busily occupied, either in seeking for sites or in actually building their nests, which resemble those of the common kite.

In the open plains the pipits (Anthus rufulus) and the crested larks (Galerita cristata) are keeping the nesting finch-larks company.

All three species build the same kind of nest—­a cup of grass or fibres (often a deep cup in the case of the crested lark) placed on the ground in a hole or a depression, or protected by a tussock of grass or a small bush.