CYPSELUS MELBA. 95 
Mr. Andersson, and has been sent from Angola by Senor Furtado 
d’Antas. 
Mr. Andersson writes :—“ At the end of February these Swifts 
appeared to be nesting, as they were seen in pairs and a male and 
female were both shot with feathers in their bills. The flight of this 
species is generally lofty.” 
The small size of the bird will tell it at a glance, the length of 
wing being under 54 inches, whereas C. pallidus, the only other 
South African Swift with which it could be confounded has the wing 
6°8 inches. The general colour is greyish brown, the head and 
wings rather darker ; throat whitish ; tail very much forked and 
the outer feather elongated. According to Mr. Andersson the “ iris 
is dark brown, the legs and feet brown, the bill black.” 
Fig. Temm. Pl. Col. 460, fig. 2. 
91. CypsELUS MELBA. White-bellied Swift. 
Cypselus gutturalis, Gurney in Anderss. B. Dam. Ld. p. 46. 
Aswith C. apus, the South African White-bellied Swifts have been 
supposed by Canon Tristram to belong to another species and referred 
to OC. gutturalis of Vieillot. The differences proposed, however, do 
not hold good in our opinion, and in this Mr. Dresser also concurs 
(B. Eur. part xxxi). It can, indeed, scarcely be doubted that the 
specimens seen in South Africa, only at the time when the species is 
absent from Europe, are emigrants from the latter continent. We 
must, however, add one peculiarity respecting the South African 
birds, and that is, that we never heard them utter any sound, 
whereas during a visit to Switzerland, in the summer of 1871, we 
were astonished to hear the stridulous cry uttered by the birds while 
circling around the cathedral of Berne. Can it be, therefore, that 
the note is only uttered during the nesting season, as the bird does 
not breed with us, as far as we know? Le Vaillant, indeed, says 
that it breeds in rocks, but we have never heard of their nests being 
found, though we have seen them flying into crevices of the rocky 
sides of Table Mountain. We have also watched several pairs flying 
in and out of the rocky face of the “ Ravine” at Simon’s Town, 
but had no means of ascertaining if the birds were in a breeding 
state, and the crevices were perfectly inaccessible. 
The great Alpine Swift is very abundant about Cape Town, where 
