CHERRIE: ORNITHOLOGY OF THE ORINOCO REGION. 1 59 



Key TO THE Species and Subspieces o? Hirundinidae. 



Nostrils rounded, opening upward, and under parts not entirely white; no 

 white spots on inner webs of rectrices. 

 6. Size large; wing more than 120 mm. 



c. Chin and upper throat nearly uniform with breast. Entire upper 



parts, in adults, glossy blue black, in young blackish, washed with 



glossy steel bluish; lateral rectrices narrowed terminally. 



d. Under parts glossy steel blue like upper parts (adult male), or else 



feathers of throat and chest edged with paler, giving a squamate 



appearance (female and young) Progne subis subis. 



d'. Under parts not glossy steel blue like upper parts, and throat and 



chest feathers without prominent paler margins — not squamate. . . Progne chalybea chalybea. 

 c'. Chin and upper throat much paler than breast. Upper parts brown- 

 ish grey with a faint gloss; lateral rectrices more rounded terminally. Phaeoprogne tapera imma- 



culata. 

 b'. Smaller; wing less than 115 mm. 

 c. Tail less than half as long as wing. 



c'. Tail half as long or more than half as long as wing Pygochelidon^ cyanoleuca. 2 



d. Under tail-coverts white (with blackish subterminal spots in 

 same) and throat or crown, or both, rufous or tawny. 



e. Both crown and throat tawny or rufous Alopochelidon^ fucala* 



e'. Throat only, tawny or rufous; outet primary roughened by 



recurved tips to the barbs (not apparent in young) Slelgidopteryx rttficollis 



aequalis. 

 d'. Under tail-coverts black, blackish or brown with slight purplish 

 wash, no rufous or tawny on either throat or crown; tail 

 rather deeply forked. 

 e. In adults a blue black band across breast, throat and belly 



white Diplochelidon melanoleuca. * 



e'. Under parts glossy blue-black (like the back) with a band of 



white across the breast AUicora fasciata. 



'. Nostrilslongitudinal, opening laterally, at lower edge of nasal fossa; under 

 parts white, or rectrices marked with white spots on inner webs near tips. 



6. Rectrices with white spot on inner webs Hiriindo erythrogasler. ^ 



b'. Rectrices not marked with white spots near tips on inner webs Iridoprocne olbiventer. 



Progne subis subis (Linnaeus). 



Hirundo subis L., Syst. Nat. ed. lo I. 1758. p. 192. 

 Progne sicbis Berlepsch & Hartert, p. 14. 



Not met with on the Orinoco proper but Klages sent examples 

 to the Tring- Museum that were collected at Suapure on the Caura 

 River in March and April as recorded by Berlepsch and Hartert. 



^Pygochelidon, Baird, Review Am. Birds. 1865. pp. 270, 305, 308 (Type, Hirundo cyanoleuca Vieillot). 



-While I find no record of this species having been taken in the region under consideration further 

 collecting will doubtless discover it as it has occurred at La Guayra, Venezuela, on the Island of Trinidad 

 and at several points in British Guiana. 



^Alopochelidon, Ridgway, Birds N. & M. Amer., HI. 1904. p. 26 (Type, Hirundo fucata Temmnick). 



^Although this species has not been recorded from the Orinoco, I include it in the key on the strength 

 of its having been taken in the Roraima district in British Guiana. 



51 have not sufficient material to properly characterize the young of this form, but from specimens 

 before me I am led to think that in juvenal plumage the throat is greyish brown, with the feathers narrowly 

 margined with pale greyish; breast, belly and shorter under-tail coverts white; longer tail coverts brown 

 washed with purplish blue near tips. 



^This species has been recorded from the island of Curacao, from Barbados, from Trinidad, and from 

 several points in British Guiana, but there are as yet apparently no records for the Orinoco region. 



