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116 ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY. 
Famity CYPSELIDZ. Tue Swirts. 
Bill very small, without notch, triangular, much broader than high, the culmen 
not one-sixth the gape; anterior toes cleft tothe base, each with three joints (in the 
typical species), and covered with skin, the middle claw without any serrations, 
the lateral toes nearly equal to the middle; bill without bristles, but with minute 
feathers extending along the under margin of the nostrils; nostrils elongated, supe- 
rior, and very close together; plumage compact; primaries ten, elongated, falcate. 
CHATURA, STEPHENS. 
Chetura, StrrpHENS. Shaw’s Gen. Zool. Birds, XIII. (1825) 76 (type C. 
pelasgia). 
Tail very short, scarcely more than two-fifths the wings, slightly rounded, the 
shafts stiffened and extending some distance beyond the feathers in a rigid spine; 
first primary longest; legs covered by a naked skin, without scutelle or feathers; 
tarsus longer than middle toe; lateral toes equal, nearly as long as the middle; hind 
toe scarcely versatile, or quite posterior, with the claw, less than the middle anterior 
without it; toes slender, claws moderate; feathers of the base of the bill not extend- 
ing beyond the beginning of the nostrils. 
CHETURA PELASGIA. — Stephens. 
The Chimney Swallow. 
Hirundo pelasgia, Linneus. Syst. Nat. I. (1766) 345. Wils. Am. Orn. V. 
(1812) 48. 
Cypselus pelasgia, Audubon. Orn. Biog. II. (1834) 829; V. 419. 
Chetura pelasgia, Stephens. Shaw’s Gen. Zool. Birds, XIII. (1825) 76. 
DESCRIPTION. 
Tail slightly rounded; of a sooty-brown all over, except on the throat, which 
becomes considerably lighter from the breast to the bill; above with a greenish 
tinge; the rump a little paler. 
Length, five and a quarter inches; wing, five ten one-hundredths; tail, two fifteen 
one-hundredths. 
HIS well-known bird is a common summer inhabitant 
of New England. It arrives in great numbers from 
the South, about the Ist to the 10th of May. Immediately 
on arriving, the birds pair, and commence building. The 
nest is usually constructed in an unused flue of a chimney ; 
but, before the country was settled, they bred, and I have no 
