ALPINE SWIFT. 



241 



hard, M. Vieillot says the nest is small for the size of the 

 bird, and when fixed against a vertical surface is in the form 

 of a half circle. This bird lays four or five elongated white 

 eggs. 



The White-bellied Swift annually visits the rocks in the 

 Canton of Geneva ; the high steeple at Berne, the cathedral 

 at Fribourg, and other suitable places in the countries already 

 named, and M. Vieillot says it is also found at Constanti- 

 nople. The Cypselus Africanus, or Le Martinet a gorge 

 blanche of Le Vaillant's Birds of Africa, is considered to be 

 the same as this White-bellied Swift. 



The beak is black, and longer in proportion than in the 

 Common Swift ; the irides blackish brown ; the top of the 

 head, sides of the neck, and all the upper surface of the body, 

 wings, and tail, nearly uniform hair-brown ; chin, throat, 

 breast, and belly, white; a band across the upper part of the 

 breast ; the thighs, vent, and under tail-coverts, hair-brown ; 

 feathers on the legs brown ; toes orange brown ; claws dark 

 brown. 



The whole length of the bird from the point of the beak 

 to the end of the feathers of the tail, which are forked and 

 very stiff, is eight inches and three-eighths. From the carpal 

 joint of the wing to the end of the longest feather, eight 

 inches and five-eighths ; the wings, when closed, reach two 

 inches beyond the end of the forked tail ; the second quill- 

 feather the longest in the wing ; the first feather a little 

 longer than the third ; the shafts of all black. 



VOL. II. 



