-popular Sh'rttonarn of ftnimntrtr $aturr. 659 



dark brown down the centre ; iridcsblackish 

 brown ; bill blackish gray ; legs and feet 

 olive-gray. Gould's Birds of Australia, 



ThcPAi.M SWIFT. (TacJtornis pJiamicobia.) 

 We are told by Mr. Gossc, in bis interesting 

 work on tlie ' Birds of Jamaica,' that this 

 delicately formed little Swift, conspicuous 

 even in flight, from the broad belt of white 

 across its bluck body, is a very common 

 species in Jamaica, where it resides all the 

 year. It is thus described : I rides dark 

 hazel ; beak black ; feet purplish flesh- 

 colour ; claws horn-colour ; inside of mouth 

 flesh-colour, tinged in parts with bluish. 

 | Head smoke brown, paling on the sides ; 

 back, wings, tail-coverts, and tail sooty- 

 , black, unglossed, or with slight greenish re- 

 ! flections on the tail. Across the rump a 

 I broad band of pure white, the block descend- 

 ing into it from the back, in form of a point; 

 sometimes dividing it. Chin and throat 

 silky white, the feathers brown at the base ; 

 sides smoky black, meeting in a narrow, i 1 1- 

 defined line across the breast ; medial belly 

 white. Thighs, under tail-coverts, and 

 j inner surface of wings smoky black. " Over 



I the grass-pieces ar.d savannas of the low- 

 lands, the marshy flats at the seaward 

 I mouths of the valleys, as well as the pens of 

 I the mountain slopes, this swift-winged sylph 

 daily urges its rushing course in parties of 

 half a dozen to fifty or a hundred, often 

 mingled with other Swallows, performing 

 mazy evolutions, circling and turning, cross- 

 ing and recrossing, now darting aloft, now 

 sweeping over the grass, till the eye is 

 wearied with attempting to follow them. 

 The length of its wings, which is scarcely 

 less than that of the whole bird, renders 

 it a fleet and powerful flyer ; an attentive 

 observer will be able to mdentify it, when 

 mingling in aerial career, by a more fre- 

 quent recurrence of the rapid vibration of 

 the wings, the momentary winnowing, by 

 which a fresh impetus is gained. There is a 

 very interesting structure in the sternum of 

 this bird, which, as far as I know, is unpre- 

 cedented. The sternum, though void of 

 emargiriations, possesses two oblong foramina 

 of large size, one on each side of the middle 

 of the ridge, and a round one perforating the 

 ridge itself near the front margin. As all 

 three are closed by the usual membrane, the 

 object may be, the decrease of weight by the 

 abstraction of bone, while the surface for 

 the attachment of the muscles of flight re- 

 mains undiminished." 



Our author then proceeds with an in- 

 teresting description of their nests. " I ob- 

 served," says he, "several small Swallows 

 flying above some cocoa-nut palms ; they 

 uttered, as they flew, a continued twittering 

 warble, shrill but sweet, which attracted my 

 attention. I commenced a careful search, 

 with my eye, of the under surface of the 

 fronds and spadices of one, and at length 

 discerned some masses of cotton projecting 

 from some of the spathes, which I concluded 

 to be their nests. This conjecture proved 

 correct ; for presently I discovered a bird 

 clinging to one of these masses, which I shot, 

 and found to be tliis white-rumped Swift. 



On my lad's attempt to climb the tree, eight 

 or ten birds flew in succession from various 

 parts, where they had been concealed before. 

 The tree, however, was too smooth to be 

 climbed, and as we watched beneath for the 

 birds to return, one and another came, but 

 charily, and entered their respective nests. 

 Although several other cocoa-nuts were 

 close by, I could not discern that any one of 

 them was tenanted but this, and this so nu- 

 merously ; whence I inferred the social dis- 

 position of the bird. At some distance we 

 found another tree, at the foot of which lay 

 the dried fronds, spadices, and spathes, 

 which had been, in the course of growth, 

 thrown off, and in these were many nests. 

 They were formed chiefly in the hollow 

 spathes, and were placed in a series of three 

 or four in a spathe, one above another, and 

 agglutinated together, but with a kind of 

 gallery along the side, communicating' with 

 each. The materials seemed only feathers 

 and silk-cotton (the down of the Bombax) ; 

 the former very largely used, the most downy 

 placed within, the cotton principally with- 

 out ; the whole felted closely, and cemented 

 together by some slimy fluid, now dry, 

 probably the saliva. * * All the nests 

 were evidently old ones, for the Bombtvr hud 

 not yet perfected its cotton, and hence I 

 infer that these birds continue irom year to ; 

 year to occupy the same nests, until they 

 are thrown off by the growth of the tree. 

 The entrance to the nests, which were sub- 

 globular, was near the bottom." Another 

 opportunity afterwards presented itself, and i 

 Mr. Gosse became better acquainted with 

 the habitations of the Palm Swift ; and he 

 thus describes the nests he had in his pin- 

 session : " They have a singularly hairy 

 appearance, being composed almost exclu- 

 sively of the flax-like cotton of the Bombax, 

 and when separated, are not unlike a doll's 

 wig. They are in the form of those watch- 

 fobs which are hung at beds' heads, the 

 backs being firmly glued by the saliva to the 

 under surface of the fronds, the impressions 

 of the plaits of which are conspicuous on the 

 nest when separated. The thickness is 

 slight in the upper part, but in the lower it 

 is much increased, the depth of the cup de- 

 scending very little below the opening. The 

 cotton is cemented firmly together as in the 

 case of the others, but externally it is al- 

 lowed to hang in filamentous locks, having 

 a woolly but not altogether a ragged ap- 

 pearance. A few feathers are intermixed, 

 but only singly, and not in any part spe- 

 cially. One specimen is double, two nests 

 having been constructed so close side by side, 

 that there is but a partition wall between 

 them. Many nests had eggs, but in throwing 

 down the fronds all were broken but one, 

 which I now have. It is pure white, un- 

 spotted, larger at one end, measuring 13-20ths 

 of an inch by 9-20ths. The average dimen- 

 sions of the nests were about five inches high, 

 and three and a half wide." 



SWIFT [MOTHS]. A name applied by 

 collectors to Moths of the genus Hepialua. 



SWORD-FISH. (Xiphios.) A genus of 

 Acanthopterygian fiahes, the distinguishing 



