660 



5 YS TEMA TIC S Y NOP SIS. — PICA RIJ^— CORA CLE. 



notes, it has mostly forsakeu the ways of its ancestors, who bred in hollow trees, and now places 

 its curious open-work nest of bits of twig glued together with saliva, inside disused or little used 



chimneys in settled parts of 

 the country. In districts still 

 primitive, however, it continues 

 to use hollow trees, to which 

 it resorts by thousands to roost. 

 Not impossibly winters in such 

 retreats in a lethargic state ! 

 The dry twigs for its pretty 

 basket -like nest are snapped 

 ofl' the trees by the birds in full 

 flight. No soft lining is used ; 

 the nest is shaped like half a 

 saucer, 3 or 4 inches across by 

 2 or 3 in the other width, and 

 less than an inch deep ; the 

 twigs used are from half an 

 inch to 2 inches or even more 

 in length, and a sixteenth to 



Fig. 377. — Nest and Eggs of Chunuey Swift. 



an eighth of an inch thick, usually much varnished over with the dried saliva. The eggs are 

 4-5, seldom 6, 0.70 to 0.80 long by 0.53 broad, thus narrowly elliptical, and pure white. So 

 great are the volitorial powers of this bird, that the sexes can come together on the wing. 

 C. vaux'i. (To Wm. S. Vaux, of Philadelphia.) Vaux's Swift. Similar; paler; rump 

 and upper tail-coverts lighter than rest of upper parts ; throat whitish. Smaller ; length 4.50 j 

 wing the same; tail 1.67. Pacific Coast region, U. S. and British Columbia, rarely in the 

 interior E. of the Sierras Nevadas and Cascade ranges ; S. in winter to Central America. Nest 

 and eggs as in the common species; eggs averaging a trifle smaller. This species still uses 

 hollow trees to breed in, but is already beginning to utilize chimneys. 



Note. — One or two other species of this genus, representing the subgenus Hemiprocne, 

 may be expected over our border — especially the Collared Swift, Hemiprocne zonaris- 

 of Mexico, etc. This is a large handsome bird, blackish, with a white collar around the neck 

 behind, and a white breast ; length about 9.00; wing nearly as much; tail 3.00. The Half- 

 collared Swift, H. semicollaris, also inhabits Mexico. 



Suborder CORACI-^ : Coracian Birds. 



See p. 541 for characters of this group, framed to include the five families Leptosomatidcey 

 Coraciida;, Capritmilgidce, Podargidce, and Steatornithid(e. Only one of these, the Capri- 

 midgidce, is North American. In former editions of the Key, this family included the Podar- 

 gidce and Steatornithidce, and was brought under a suborder Cypseliformes, corresponding 

 exactly to the "order" Macrochires, of the present A. 0. U. classification, and including the 

 Trochilidce and Micropodidce. (It should be observed here that the original Macrochires of 

 Nitzsch included only the " long-handed " families, the Swifts and Hummers, as did also the 

 precisely equivalent Cypseliformes of Garrod ; but that the Cypseliformes of Coues, like the 

 Cypselomorplice of Huxley, combined the Caprimidgidce with the Cypselidce and Trochilida;.) 

 But the undeniably close relations of the Goatsuckers, Swifts, and Hummers are overbalanced 

 by the closer affinities of the Caprimulgiue Birds with the Rollers and Kirumbos ; hence the 

 present association of all the Coracian birds in one suborder. The Steatornithida;, a mono- 

 typical neotropical family consisting of a single species, Steatornis caripensis, the Guacharo 



