116 ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY. 



FAMILY CYPSELIDJE. THE SWIFTS. 



Bill very small, without notch, triangular, much broader than high, the culmen 

 not one-sixth the gape; anterior toes cleft to the 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. 



CHJETURA, STEPHENS. 



Chcetura, STEPHENS. 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 scutellse 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. 



CHJETURA PELASGIA. Stephens. 

 The Chimney Swallow. 



Hirundo pelasgia, Linnaeus. Syst. Nat. I. (1766) 345. Wils. Am. Orn. V. 

 (1812) 48. 



Cypselus pelasgia, Audubon. Orn. Biog. II. (1834) 329; V. 419. 



Chcetura 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. 



THIS well-known bird is a common summer inhabitant 

 of New England. It arrives in great numbers from 

 the South, about the 1st 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 



