36 NEW-YORK FAUNA — BIRDS. 



Description. Nostrils partially covered behind by a membrane, leaving a small tubular 

 aperture. Tongue short, cartilaginous, bifid. Feet muscular ; claws exceedingly sharp. 

 The shafts of the tail-feathers elongated into sharp, strong and very elastic points. 



Color. Brownish black above ; somewhat lighter on the rump. Throat greyish white. 

 Eyes black, surrounded by a bare black skin : a light colored line over the eye. 



Length, 40-00. 



The Chimney Swallow appears in New- York about the latter end of April, from the tropical 

 regions. Its name is derived, as every one knows, from its selecting a chimney in which it 

 builds its nest. In the unsettled districts, it breeds in hollow trees and caverns. Audubon 

 relates that he counted nine thousand of these swallows roosting in the hollow trunk of a 

 Plane tree (Platanus occidentalis). This occurred in Kentucky. In this State, they build 

 exclusively in chimneys, forming their nests of dead twigs, which they break off with their 

 feet, and agglutinate together. The eggs are four in number, white unspotted ; and two 

 broods are frequently raised in a season. It feeds on insects, which it captures on the wing ; 

 and, like some of the preceding families, it disgorges the indigestible portions oi" its food. It 

 ranges as far north as the 50th parallel, and westward to the Pacific ocean. Peculiar to 

 America. 



(EXTRALIMITAL.) 



C. vauxi (Townsend, Ac. Sc. Vol. 8, p. 148.) Rump and tail dull cinereous brown; throat and 

 upper part of breast greyish white; benea:h ash grey. Length, 3 J inches. Columbia River. 



